Canelo: The Golovkin fight will happen when I want it to

By Boxing News - 08/30/2016 - Comments

Image: Canelo: The Golovkin fight will happen when I want it to

By Dan Ambrose: Mexican star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez wants IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin to fully understand that he’s the A-side, and that the fight will happen only when he decides it will happen in the future. Right now, Canelo doesn’t see any point in fighting Golovkin, but when that moment comes that he’s ready, he’ll give him the word and Golovkin will be able to come to him at that time. In other words, Canelo wants Golovkin to know once again that he’s calling ALL the shots and all he can do is sit and wait for his word.

Canelo describes Golovkin as an “older fighter” that still has yet to fight anyone good. Canelo says his own legacy is being formed with every fight because he’s already fought high quality opposition and GGG still has not.

“I’ve fought some of the best fighters in the world, every fight I’m making history,” Alvarez said via the dailystar. “He’s the older fighter and he hasn’t fought anybody. The fight’s going to happen, it has to happen, but he hasn’t fought anybody so why would you put GGG in the history books if he hasn’t fought anybody? Everyone knows I’m the A-side. The fight will happen when I want it to.”

I’m not sure that anyone is talking history books when they talk about Golovkin. The boxing fans appreciate him for his talent and his exciting knockouts. They’re not thinking far into the future about all that nerd stuff. The fans are thinking about what’s happening now in the sport, not about what happen in 100 years in terms of records.

Canelo is right about him being the A-side with Golovkin. He’s the guy that has the huge built in fan base in the United States. There’s no ignoring that. Unfortunately for GGG, there isn’t a huge built in population of fans that will support Golovkin just for the sake of where he came from. Golovkin has to win fans based on performances. It’s a lot tougher road for Golovkin, because he’s not from the U.S or a nearby country like Canelo. He’s got a huge advantage over Golovkin with him being from nearby Mexico. I don’t think Canelo understands why he’s so popular. He’s not popular just for beating the many lesser fighters he has on his resume.

Whether Canelo knows it or not, he’s hurting his own career by not fighting Golovkin, because there are massive amount of boxing fans that are now well aware that he chose to duck the fight with him. Those fans are probably lost to Canelo forever. And while there are many fans that are still supportive of Canelo, you can argue that those are casual boxing fans that aren’t aware that Canelo vacated his WBC title in order to avoid having to fight GGG.

If the casual fans knew about that, they likely would likely abandon the Canelo ship in droves by the handful. As such, Canelo is hurting his own popularity by not fighting Golovkin and by facing weak opposition like Liam Smith, Amir Khan, Alfredo Angulo and James Kirkland. Canelo is now being mentioned as potentially fighting the winner of the September 17 fight between Willie Monroe Jr. and Gabriel Rosado. Those are what you call ‘fringe contenders’ that exist near the bottom of the World Boxing Organization’s rankings.

The fact that Canelo could wind up facing one of those guys next is pretty sad, because those guys are a clear step down from Liam Smith, the guys that Canelo will be fighting on September 17. Smith is seen as a paper champion in the eyes of a lot of fans. By fighting Smith instead of the higher quality champions like the Charlo brothers, Canelo makes himself look like a cherry picker in the eyes of a lot of fans.

“Is being sacrificed? No doubt about it,” said Canelo about Brook fighting Golovkin. “We all know what’s going to happen in the fight. I’m not too interested in the fight itself, but he’s going to knock Brook out,” said Canelo.

Brook being sacrificed? It seems to me that Brook thinks he can beat Canelo, and it was him that went after the fight with Golovkin rather than the other way around. Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy were the ones that choose to match him against welterweight Amir Khan last May. Khan had already been beaten three times in his career before he fought Canelo. Brook has never lost before, and he’s a very big fighter for the welterweight division.

Canelo can speculate in who will win the Golovkin-Brook fight if he wants to, but there’s no sacrifice going on. Matchroom Sport, the promoters of Brook, aren’t sacrificing him by putting him in with Golovkin. This is a fight that will bring Brook and Matchroom Sport huge money. Brook will likely be more popular after this fight than he ever was before. This is a real good career move for Brook, because he has the UK that will be supporting him. Brook could wind up more popular after thi fight than he ever was before.

If Canelo wants to twist things to make it seem like it’s a negative that Brook is taking a risky fight against Golovkin instead of a positive, then that’s on him. It just kind of gives you a glimpse of Canelo’s mind. If he sees risk taking fights as negative things that he equates to being sacrificed, then it tells me that Canelo doesn’t like to take risks. You certainly don’t see a lot of risk taking with Canelo’s career other than hi fights against Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Erislandy Lara.

Canelo should have lost both fights, not just the Mayweather fight. The rest of the matches that Canelo has fought have been against small, older guys like Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley, and a lot of weaker fighters like Khan, Kermit Cintron, Angulo, Kirkland, Ryan Rhodes, Matthew Hatton, Josesito Lopez, Alfonso Gomez, Austin Trout, Lovemore N’dou, Carlos Baldomir, and Jose Miguel Cotto. There’s really a lot of weak opposition on Canelo’s resume one you get past the smaller, older Cotto, Mayweather and Lara.

I believe that Golovkin would have beaten everyone that Canelo has faced during his career. Even Mayweather would lose to Golovkin, because he would not be able to take his big power. Golovkin would cut off the ring on Mayweather and Lara and knock both of them out with body shots.