By Dan Ambrose: IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin says he felt bad for welterweight Amir Khan last Saturday night in his 6th round knockout loss to the much bigger WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Golovkin said it was a bad fight for boxing because of how much bigger Canelo was.
Golovkin saw the fight as a business fight for Canelo, and he notes that he’s still never beaten a true middleweight before. Golovkin says Canelo’s fights against Floyd Mayweather, Khan, Miguel Cotto and James Kirkland were all against smaller fighters that were not middleweights.
Golovkin wants Canelo to step up and finally face a real middleweight. Most of all, Golovkin wants his WBC title that Canelo is in possession of. If Canelo won’t fight him, then he wants the belt from him. Golovkin wasn’t surprised that Canelo beat the smaller Khan because he figured that he was going to be too big for the British fighter, and he didn’t see it as a sporting fight.
“It’s not a surprise. Everybody who is a true fan understands,” Golovkin said to Power 106 Los Angeles. “Canelo is huge, he’s big, he’s too strong for Khan. Khan is a good boxer, but it’s a difficult division for him. It was very scary. After the fight, I felt terrible for Khan. It was a great performance, but not for him.”
Golovkin is right about Canelo being huge. He looked like he was 20 pounds heavier than Khan last Saturday night, and Khan came into the fight at around 160. How Canelo can’t come out and admit he’s a middleweight at this point in his career is the big question. You don’t see too many junior middleweights that are the same size as Canelo. I think Jermall Charlo might be almost the same size as Canelo, and he’s still somehow melting down to junior middleweight. Charlo will need to move up to middleweight sooner or later too. Hopefully, he doesn’t use catch-weights like Canelo rather than just fighting guys at the full weight for the division.
“That’s Abel’s style,” Golovkin says about his trainer Abel Sanchez calling Canelo a ‘Diva.’ “Because Canelo he says, ‘Oh, I’m middleweight champion, but I need, like, 155.’ What? He knows it’s 160. It’s not respect to boxing, not respect to fans. Last fight with Khan, who came from two divisions down, this is not respect. It’s a business fight. He needs, absolutely, a true middleweight fighter at 160.”
It’s hard to understand why Canelo still feels he needs to fight at 155lbs, given how heavy he is. If he’s not comfortable fighting guys in the 160lb division, he’s going to have a hard time justifying making a career out of fighting at 155 and dragging fighters to that weight limit. I’m sure Canelo can do that if he wants to for his entire career, but his legacy will be an odd one. Do you put an asterisk next to all of Canelo’s fights at 155 to note that he’s not fighting at the full weight for the middleweight division, or do you just ignore it and count it as a regular fight? If this was MLB baseball and there was a player that had to get all the other players in the opposing team to conform to a weight limit before he’d play against them, it just wouldn’t fly. It only happens in boxing, and the reason for that is because there’s no Commissioner in charge of the sport like there is in sports like baseball.
“He’s never beaten a middleweight fighter,” said Golovkin. “Cotto’s a small guy. Kirkland’s a small guy. (Mayweather) is a small guy. Now (Canelo) is a middleweight champion. Come on. Everyone needs a unification fight in the middleweight division. Who is No. 1 in the middleweight division? This is the story. I’ve been ready for a long time. For anybody. I need my belt. My goal is all the belts in the middleweight division. Canelo is a champion in the middleweight division. It doesn’t matter. If Khan had won, he’s middleweight champion.”
I don’t know if Canelo cares or doesn’t care that he’s not fought a middleweight before. Canelo seems to think he’s a junior middleweight still despite the fact that he hasn’t fought in that weight class since 2013. 155 is considered middleweight, even though it’s not at the full weight.