By Allan Fox: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KOs) has taken some fierce criticism for failing to take on IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. Canelo said today that he will be taking on Golovkin eventually. He doesn’t say when the fight will happen. The only thing that Canelo is saying is that the fight will eventually happen in time.
“We’re focused on my career and taking the next step and moving forward and eventually that fight’s going to happen (with Golovkin). It’s going to happen. It will happen,” said Canelo to Ringtv.com.
This is exactly what Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya has been saying about the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight. De La Hoya has been saying this for more than a year now. It’s become forlorn with De La Hoya repeating the same thing over and over again. Now we’ve got Canelo parroting the same line.
Canelo got fans excited after his 6th round knockout victory over Amir Khan last May by challenging Golovkin to get inside the ring with him in strong terms. However, instead of signing to fight him, Canelo vacated his WBC middleweight belt.
Canelo will be fighting WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith (23-0-1, 13 KOs) on September 17 at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The fight will be shown on HBO pay-per-view.
“Smith is a world champion and I’m going to do what I need to do,” said Canelo. “The people who support me will always support me. I’m 26 now and I get a lot of support from everybody.”
I wouldn’t say that Canelo gets a lot of support from “everybody.” I think he’s definitely burned his bridges with many boxing fans with his feet dragging when it comes to the Golovkin fight, but also with his failure to give Erislandy Lara a rematch after his controversial win over him in 2014. That was the type of fight that should have led to a rematch.
Canelo’s insistence at fighting at catch-weights at 155 has also upset fans. He’s created his own division at 155. It’s good that his next fight against Liam Smith will be at 154, but it remains to be seen if Canelo can make weight. It’s going to be hard on his body to get down to 154 after having been fighting over that weight for the last three years.
Canelo can make it easy on himself to stop the criticism if he just gets it over with and takes the Golovkin fight. It’s not as if anything changes by him and Golden Boy Promotions dragging the fight out into the future.