Golovkin vs. Saunders a possibility for GGG’s next fight?

By Boxing News - 04/27/2016 - Comments

1-golovkin (1)By Patrick McHugh: WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (23-0, 12 KOs) remains an option for IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) if he can’t get the opponent he’s looking for in WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez for this year.

Saunders’ promoter Frnk Warren acknowledges that Saunders wants that fight and they’re going to wait and see what happens with Canelo after his May 7 fight against Amir Khan. It’s generally understood that Canelo will likely beat Khan and then his promoters at Golden Boy will make a decision shortly after that whether to take the Golovkin fight.

If not, then Canelo will be stripped of his WBC title and that could open up room for Saunders to fight Golovkin in the UK possibly.

“Nothing can happen until after the Canelo fight, because obviously the WBC has ordered that Canelo is to fight Golovkin, and then we’ll see what happens with that,” said Warren to Fighthype.com about a potential fight against Golovkin for Saunders. “Bill wants the fight and we’re ready to go with it. I don’t want the fight, Bill wants the fight,” said Warren.

Golovkin would have a chance to fight for the WBO 160lb title if he faces Saunders. That would be a big deal because it would give him the chance to capture the last remaining piece of the middleweight puzzle once. By that time, Canelo will likely have been either stripped of his title by the WBC or he’ll have vacated it to avoid fighting Golovkin.

Few people think Canelo will choose to fight Golovkin in 2016. It’s possible the fight can take place but it’s likely that his promoters at Golden Boy will let the fight marinate for one to five years to make it bigger and to keep the gravy train from coming to a screeching halt with Canelo getting knocked out.

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If Golden Boy elects to make Golovkin wait as long as Floyd Mayweather Jr. made Manny Pacquiao wait, which was six years, the fight could be bigger. Of course, the fight could be nowhere if Canelo gets beaten along the way by one of the top fighters that he’ll be pressured to fight in the coming years.

Golden Boy has to keep matching Canelo against top fighters if they want him to remain popular. They also can’t keep matching Canelo against welterweights if they want to have him taken seriously. It would be better if Canelo at least moved down to junior middleweight and stopped fighting at catch-weights, so that way he could fight welterweights and not look so much like a bully taking advantage of smaller fighters than himself.

Saunders last fought in December in beating Andy Lee by a narrow 12 round decision to win his WBO middleweight title.

If Saunders can’t get the fight against Golovkin next, then there’s a chance that Saunders could fight Chris Eubank Jr. if the fight can get negotiated. That would be a tough fight to put together, and it’s debatable whether it could be done. There would be good money for Saunders if he took the fight, but it would be risky for him. He might be better off waiting for the Golovkin fight and then facing Eubank Jr. afterwards rather than doing it the other way around.