Robert Garcia in favor of Canelo’s decision to vacate WBC title

By Boxing News - 05/26/2016 - Comments

Image: Robert Garcia in favor of Canelo’s decision to vacate WBC title

By Dan Ambrose: Trainer Robert Garcia is in favor of what Mexican star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez did recently in vacating his WBC middleweight title when he was pressured by the World Boxing Council with a deadline for negotiations with Gennady “GGG” Golovkin.

Garcia says Canelo and his promoters at Golden Boy made a good business decision to vacate the WBC belt. Garcia thinks it doesn’t matter if the Canelo-Golovkin fight takes place this year because it’ll still be a big fight a year from now when the two fighters do face each other.

Garcia doubts that Canelo will face Golovkin in September. He sees the fight taking place in the future when it’s a bigger fight like the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao fight becoming bigger over time. Garcia suspects that one of the reasons why the fight won’t happen soon is because Canelo and Golden Boy will look to wait for the 34-year-old Golovkin to age more because he might not be the same fighter in the future when he gets older.

“I support Canelo, man. This a business,” said Garcia to Fighthype. “IF he was the one making the decisions and he was the one that could decide what he’s going to do, I think he would fight. He’s not afraid of Triple G, but this is a business. He’s got a promoter. He’s got a manager, who might feel that the fight might be bigger and generate more money a year from now. I don’t mind waiting a year to see that fight. I want to see Canelo fight David Lemieux. I wouldn’t mind Triple G fighting a couple of other guys before they meet each other because I know that fights still going to happen. I don’t think it’s going to happen in September like a lot of people thought. He [Canelo] had to let go of the belt, but belts don’t make the money. The belts need him to make the percentages off his purse. He doesn’t need to. So I don’t blame him. If he was getting pressured, then he did the right thing. That’s probably one of the main reasons why they’ll probably do it. It’s a smart way to do it. Golovkin is Golovkin, but in a year or a year and a half, he might not be the same. Who knows? He might even get stronger. He’s not getting any punishment. He doesn’t get hit, he dominates pretty easy. So in a year from now, he’ll probably still be as good. I’m not afraid if the fight doesn’t happen this year. I can still wait. We’re still going to see a great fight. People waited five years to see Mayweather-Pacquiao. It still generated over four million buys. So I think it’s all about the business,” said Garcia.

Golovkin doesn’t have any choice other than to go along with whatever decision Canelo and Golden Boy comes up with regarding their fight. Golovkin can’t pay them back by simply putting Canelo on ignore for the remainder of his career, because if he makes a childish move like that, he’ll wind up hurting himself a lot more than he will Canelo. Don’t get me wrong; it’ll definitely hurt Canelo if Golovkin decides that he’s never going to fight him in order to pay him back for not wanting to fight now. Canelo might not ever get a chance like this again to fight someone with the cache that Golovkin has right now.

If you remove Golovkin from the equation, it leaves Canelo looking at a lot of names that will never bring in the kind of money that Golovkin will. The 147, 154 and 160lb divisions are lacking in the big names that Canelo needs to bring in the big money a fight against Golovkin would. Never the less, Golovkin isn’t going to walk away from a fight against Canelo a year or more from now. If the fight is offered to him in five years, Golovkin will likely eagerly take the fight with him even if he’s over the hill by that point in his career. The money will be too good for him to turn down.

If Canelo and Golden Boy chooses to wait him out until he’s old and harmless, the best thing for Golovkin to do is focus on getting the best fights he can against the best guys until he eventually faces Canelo in the future. At 25, Canelo can wait Golovkin out until he’s past his prime. There’s nothing Golovkin can do about that. He’s stuck if he wants the payday. But the reality is that if Canelo fights Golovkin while he’s still in his prime, he’s likely to get torn apart and embarrassed by the Kazakstan fighter. Golovkin is simply a much better fighter than Canelo can ever hope to be in my view. That’s probably why Canelo isn’t going to fight him until he’s older.

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Canelo will be making a business decision rather than a decision based on the sport. Boxing is so different from other sports. In the NFL, a team couldn’t wait out another top team until they were old and weak before playing them. They would have to play that team in their prime without putting off the game. If a team chose not to fight another great team, then there would ramifications to the organization coming from the NFL. In boxing it’s different.

You can avoid fighters, given up belts, and wait until guys are old before fighting them. Or you can simply not fight them at all. With Canelo, I think he’s going to fight Golovkin eventually, but it might not be until he’s old and harmless.

I’d be surprised if Canelo takes the fight in 2016, because there would be too much risk for him. Further, Canelo is Golden Boy’s only big money fighter in their stable, and they’re probably not going to want to put him at risk of getting beaten by Golovkin and watching his value drop. Golden Boy has a good thing going with Canelo because he’ll make money no matter who he faces.