By Dan Ambrose: Former two division world champion Sergio “Maravilla” Martinez (51-3-2, 28 KOs) doubts that Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KOs) will ever fight IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) in a mega-fight. Martinez thinks that Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy will never let that fight take place because they want to look out for the best interests for him.
Obviously, Golden Boy wants to also look out for their own best interests, and clearly it’s better for them if Canelo doesn’t get knocked out by Golovkin. Canelo can make good money fighting guys that are sure thing wins like Amir Khan and Liam Smith.
“I think Golovkin is the best middleweight, and has been for a few years and will continue to be for a few more years,” said Martinez to Fighthub. “He will be the best middleweight while he stays at 160. I don’t think they [Golovkin and Canelo] are going to fight. I don’t think they will ever fight, because promoters make smart moves and they have to protect their boxers and Golovkin is still too dangerous for Canelo. Right now, he’s still too dangerous. It’s only the promoters and managers that can push fighters. It’s very difficult for a fighter to have a big voice like I did to ask for things, and not everyone is alike and you have to respect that,” said Martinez.
Golovkin needs to move on and forget about a fight against Canelo because it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen until he’s older. Golovkin just needs to decide whether to agree to a fight Canelo later in his career or choose to ignore him because he failed to fight him while in his prime.
Canelo does have a voice in which fighters he faces. We already know that because he’s the one that supposedly insisted on fighting Erislandy Lara in 2014, and Austin Trout in 2013. Golden Boy was said to have been against both of those fights taking place. However, it’s one thing for Canelo to insist on fighting the likes of Lara and Trout and another thing altogether to insist on fighting Triple G. Thus far, Canelo hasn’t pushed for that fight with Golovkin.
Martinez’s prediction about Canelo never facing Golovkin will likely turn out to be correct. The fact that Golden Boy is saying that Canelo will fight Golovkin in September of 2017 rather than in May of 2017 on Cinco de Mayo seems to suggest that the fight will never take place. By tentatively scheduling the Canelo-Golovkin fight so far into the future, it seems pretty obvious that Golovkin Boy isn’t serious about making the fight. It’s like when you ask a girl for a date and she says, ‘Yes, we can out in a year and half from now.’ When you hear that, it’s time to move on because it’s not happening.
The only way that I can see Golden Boy letting their flagship fighter Canelo to fight Golovkin is when he’s over-the-hill and no longer the fighter he is today. The 25-year-old Canelo has the luxury of waiting for that to happen, because he’s young enough to wait GGG out until he’s old and gray. In 10 years from now, Golovkin will be 44 and Canelo 35. I don’t think Canelo will be relevant any longer in terms of being the main guy at 154 or 160 by that point in his career, but he’ll still likely be a big money maker due to his large fan base in the U.S and in nearby Mexico. Canelo isn’t the main guy now at 154 and 160. He’s just a popular fighter that once held titles at junior middleweight and middleweight. I don’t think Canelo can beat the best 154lb fighters like the Charlo brothers, Demetrius Andrade, Julian Williams and Erislandy Lara without controversy.
Martinez is now retired from boxing after losing to Miguel Cotto by a 10th round knockout in June 2014. Martinez’s surgically repaired right knee wasn’t 100 percent for that fight, and he wasn’t the same fighter that he’d been in the past.
Unfortunately, Martinez wasn’t able to come back from his knee surgery to be the fighter that he once was. If Martinez had been healthy for the Cotto fight, he likely would have dominated him and knocked him out. Fighting on one healthy leg kept Martinez from doing what he needed to for him to beat Cotto.