By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions executive Eric Gomez says Team Golovkin is asking their fighter WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez to move up an entire division to fight IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin at the full weight for the middleweight division at 160lbs.
Gomez says Golovkin would not move up an entire division to fight former WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward at 168. Gomez feels that Golovkin should meet Canelo at a catch-weight because he’s not yet become a middleweight.
Golovkin and his team feel otherwise. They note that Canelo is around the same weight as Golovkin after he rehydrates for his fights, so they don’t see any point in Golovkin coming down to 155 to fight Canelo.
“Team Golovkin is asking ‘Canelo’ to move up to another weight class to face him, yet they didn’t accept moving up one weight class to face [former super-middleweight champion] Andre Ward,” said Gomez to the latimes.com. “We are fully engaged and concentrated on May 7. If [Alvarez] is successful, we will then sit down as a team and discuss all options.”
Canelo has a fight against Amir Khan on May 7 on HBO PPV from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The winner of that fight has 15 days to decide whether or not to fight Golovkin. Supposedly if they don’t agree to fight him, then they’ll be stripped of the WBC middleweight title. However, World Boxing Council president Jose Sulaiman is not saying whether he’ll strip Canelo if he chooses not to fight Golokvin.
We’re going to find out by the end of May whether the Canelo-Khan winner will take the fight with Golovkin. I won’t be surprised if the Canelo-Khan winner turns the match down and keep the WBC title without being stripped. I’m not sure what the WBC will do at that point. They can always create another champion by making Canelo the Super WBC champion at 160 and have Golovkin fight for the regular WBC belt. The WBA has a setup like that. If the WBC does that, they’ll keep Canelo and Golovkin happy. However, they’ll potentially cheapen their belt in doing so by creating another title for the middleweight division.
“Let’s see what happens. Phase 1 is finished. Phase 2, let’s see. [Golovkin] is very powerful, like a pit bull, and [a bout against Alvarez] is a fight that everybody wants to see,” said Suliaman to the latimes.com when asked if he’ll strip Canelo of his title if he doesn’t fight Golovkin.
Golovkin will be at the Canelo vs. Khan fight on May 7. Golovkin is hoping that Canelo is pressured into defending the belt against him by various people.
“Absolutely. Everybody feels the same, and I think it’ll make [Team Alvarez] feel pressured,” Golovkin said to the latimes.com. “I’m ready to fight him. I don’t think Golden Boy is ready.”
Golovkin needs to be have a Plan-B opponent to fall back on if he can’t get the fight against Canelo or Khan later this year for the WBC title.
Golovkin could look to fight WBO champion Billy Joe Saunders, but he’ll probably need to agree to fight him in the UK because that’s where Saunders wants the fight to take place. It’s unclear how serious Saunders is about wanting to fight Golovkin. He’s talking up a fight against him but it’s hard to know how serious he is.