WBC president ready to enforce GGG – Canelo agreement

By Boxing News - 05/05/2016 - Comments

Image: WBC president ready to enforce GGG – Canelo agreementBy Dan Ambrose: WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman says he will enforce the agreement between Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and interim WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin to strip Canelo of the WBC middleweight title if he or Amir Khan fails to fight GGG next.

Canelo and Golovkin have an agreement with the World Boxing Council that the winner of their next interim fights must then face each other next. Golovkin did of the agreement by beating Dominic Wade last month. Now it’s Canelo’s turn with his interim fight against Khan on Saturday night in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The winner of the Canelo-Khan fight must fight Golovkin. If they fail to, then Suliaman will strip them of the WBC title. Judging by Khan’s comments this week about wanting to protect his health by moving down in weight rather than facing Golovkin, it would seem unlikely that he’ll agree to fight Triple G if he beats Canelo on Saturday. For Canelo, it’s a different story. Canelo doesn’t have a lower weight division to move down to other than staying at his perch at 155lbs, which is in between junior middleweight and middleweight.

“Triple G already won and he did his part,” Sulaiman said to ESPN.com. “Out of respect for Amir Khan, we are trying to keep the focus on this [Alvarez-Khan] fight, but the agreement is clear. It’s public, it’s on paper and that’s the way to proceed.”

This isn’t good for Canelo that Suliaman is talking of the agreement that he has in place with him and Golovkin. It means that Suliman is serious about enforcing the agreement by forcing the Canelo-Khan winner to either face Golovkin next or give up the WBC title. Of course, they can vacate or have the WBC title stripped from them if they don’t agree to fight Golovkin. The important thing is they’ll have to give up the WBC belt if they don’t agree to fight Golovkin.

Canelo shocked boxing fans this week when he said Golovkin will need to earn the title shot against him for the WBC title. Canelo says that Golovkin will need to start fighting better opposition if he wants to face him. Presumably, Canelo meant this as a sign that he’ll be giving up his WBC 160lb title, because there’s no way that he could continue to hold onto the belt without the WBC letting him ignore their mandate they have in place. Suliaman doesn’t seem willing to let Canelo get away with not fighting Golovkin.

With Golovkin in the background lurking like a predator waiting to pounce on the winner of the Canelo-Khan fight, it takes away a little bit of the shine for the fight and makes it seem like a less significant fight in some ways. As I mentioned earlier, Khan is probably give up the WBC title rather than fight Golovkin, and Canelo has pretty much admitted the same thing by saying Golovkin has to earn a fight against him. This effectively means that neither of these fighters wants any part of fighting Golovkin. Boxing fans don’t like duckers, as they see them as cowardly. That’s why it looks bad that Khan and Canelo have made comments this week suggesting they won’t fight Golovkin.

Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler responded to the comments from Canelo this week about Golovkin needing to earn a fight against Canelo. Loeffler says Golovkin just wants to fight for the WBC title, and he plans on doing that.

In other words, doesn’t seem like Golovkin will be bothering with the nonsense that Canelo is saying about having to earn the fight with him because he’s already been the mandatory challenger to the WBC belt since 2014. He’s been waiting two years for his title shot at the WBC belt and he’s not going to wait any longer.

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“GGG has been the WBC Interim Champion and mandatory challenger since October 2014 for Miguel Cotto, long before Canelo ever fought for that title,” Loeffler said to Fightnews.com. “He doesn’t care who he fights for the WBC title. Whether it would have been Sergio Martinez, Miguel Cotto, who we couldn’t make fights with, or Canelo Alvarez or Amir Kahn, he just wants to enforce his rights to fight for the title to be one step closer to his goal of unifying the middleweight division.”

It would seem that Canelo will give up the WBC belt rather than fight Golovkin. Canelo’s trainer Eddy Reynoso says they’re willing to fight Golovkin but they want him to agree to their conditions first before the fight can be made. Those conditions likely involve Golovkin agreeing to some kind of catch-weight.

Whether that be at 155lbs or slightly heavier at 157 is unclear. It’s extremely doubtful that Canelo would agree to a catch-weight of 158lbs, because that wouldn’t do much to weaken Golovkin. The only catch-weight that would work in draining the strength from Golovkin would be at 155. That would be a very difficult weight for Golovkin to make, and he likely be significantly weakened from his efforts at getting down to that weight.

“This is also a business and we want to make what’s best for our fighter. We will fight if the terms and conditions are good for us,” said Reynoso to Fightnews.com. “It’s a fight that has to be made. It’s a matter of doing some negotiations. Remember that Canelo is the A side now,” said Reynoso.

Golovkin will be at the Canelo-Khan fight this Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. He’ll be making his presence known by being there in person so that the HBO television crew will film him and be sure to remind the viewers on HBO PPV that the winner of the Canelo-Khan fight is supposed to fight Golovkin. That’s going to make whoever wins this fight look bad if they choose not to fight Golovkin.

I’m not sure if Canelo or his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions will lose sleep over that, because it seems like their main focus is to keep winning fights at any costs against whoever they can find. Khan was picked from the welterweight division. Former four division world champion Miguel Cotto is a name that has been floated for Canelo’s next fight in September of this year if he doesn’t fight Golovkin. Canelo fought Cotto last November and the fight brought in 900,000 PPV buys on HBO.