By Bradley D. Cision:: It looks like even Saul Canelo” Alvarez’s opponent WBO junior middleweight champion Liam “Beefy” Smith is criticizing Canelo Alvarez for ducking the universally recognized middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin. In a recent interview with Fight News, Liam Smith was quoted as saying that Canelo ducked GGG massively and went about everything the wrong way when approaching a potential fight with Golovkin, and calling him out.
“Yeah, ducked him [Golovkin] massively. He went the wrong way about it. He’s being criticized a lot and losing a lot of fans about the way he did it,” said Liam Smith to Fightnews.com about Canelo ducking the Golovkin fight.
After his ridiculous fight with Amir Khan last May, who had been knocked out many times before by much smaller men, Canelo proceeded to tell everyone in attendance and watching the fight on television that he had no problem fighting GGG right then and there, and how Mexican people don’t **** around. Shortly thereafter the excuses started. “Tom Loeffler is not available”, “We won’t be forced by WBC deadlines”, “We are in Court, we cannot negotiate” followed then by a lot of trash talk about how GGG doesn’t deserve the fight and criticizing his resume, and now, negotiating with BJ Saunders.
Let’s be honest here, Canelo is avoiding GGG at all costs. After an impressive display against Austin Trout in a fight that could have gone either way, and a somewhat disappointing fight with Lara which many thought he lost, and a fight with Floyd Mayweather where he looked like an amateur, he proceeded to fight ridiculous, easy fights. Completely shot Alfredo Angulo, no chin James Kirkland and no chin Amir Khan coming up from 147 where he had no good wins at all.
So now we have the blatant ducking of GGG because “Canelo’s body isn’t ready for 160.” But I say hold on a minute, if your body isn’t ready for 160, why are you negotiating with WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders for a fight in December? Why is Saunders invited to fight on your undercard against Smith?
It’s about time a decent journalist interviews Canelo to his face and asks him the tough questions. When Canelo replies about his body, or business, someone needs to respond in the appropriate manner. You were the mandatory, you said you weren’t ready for 160, now you’re planning on fighting every fighter that ducked the REAL middleweight champion in order to avoid him, until he either gets too old, or moves up to 168. Even Liam Smith says if he wins, he will NOT fight Golovkin, because he is not ready.
It’s a shame that Golden Boy Promotions has started steering Canelo towards what he has become, which is a complete diva in my opinion, much like Miguel Cotto. Instead of fighting the real undisputed champions in their weight classes, they both have resorted to ridiculous catchweights, incredibly difficult negotiations, and easy fights. As a boxing fan you have to speak up against this by not buying tickets or the pay-per-view fights. Will it affect the shady practices? Probably not, but don’t waste your money on Canelo Alvarez until he fights the fights the fans want. Keep speaking up on social media, and let your voice be heard. Bring boxing back to the fans.