Canelo will need to fight dangerous opponent in early 2017 says Sanchez

By Boxing News - 10/23/2016 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez could be facing some very dangerous fights for him now that he’s moving up to middleweight, says Gennady “GGG” Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez. With Canelo and his promoters at Golden Boy wanting his fights in early 2017 to be televised on HBO pay-per-view, it means that he’s going to need to fight good middleweights like David Lemieux, Billy Joe Saunders or Curtis Stevens, says Sanchez. He feels those will be dangerous fights for Canelo that he could potentially lose.

Sanchez isn’t sure if those fights would result in Canelo being in a war, but he does think those will be matches where he’ll definitely be in a fight. Golovkin has already beaten Lemieux and Stevens by a knockout. Those were easy fights for him, but they may not be easy matches for Canelo. He doesn’t have the same boxing skills that Golovkin possesses.

The aging 35-year-old former four division world champion Miguel Cotto’s name has been added to the mix of fighters that have a good chance of fighting Canelo in the first quarter of 2017. Canelo will be fighting twice in the first quarter next year in fighting in February and then in May. If Golden Boy wants BOTH of those fights to be televised on HBO pay-per-view, then Canelo will likely need to fight Lemieux and Cotto. However, Canelo wants the WBO 160lb belt that is in possession of WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders, so there’s a very strong chance that he’ll be the guy that Canelo fights in February.

The fight will likely be at a strength-draining catch-weight of 158lbs, which will hurt Saunders more than it will Canelo. The catch-weight is needed by Canelo, because Saunders can’t punch. However, unless Canelo uses a catch-weight for the Saunders fight, he won’t be able to suddenly demand one if he winds up facing Lemieux in May. That’s why it’s in Canelo’s best interest to have a strength draining catchweight at 158 for the Saunders fight in February, and then use it again for his May fight, which could be Lemieux or Cotto.

Sanchez said this to Fighthype.com about Canelo’s potential fights coming up in early 2017:

“These guys that step inside the ropes are warriors. They’ll fight anybody. The business side of boxing sometimes takes it’s place and keeps fights from happening. Canelo, I think, is more than willing to fight him if his handlers say it’s the correct time and the correct amount. Hopefully it happens in September if they keep talking. If he’s [Canelo] going to fight a middleweight, the names that are being mentioned are very dangerous. They’ve mentioned [David] Lemieux as one of them. That’s a dangerous fight. He’s going to have to fight somebody, because he wants it to be a pay-per-view fight. In order for it to be a pay-per-view and to build the fight in September, he’s going to have to fight somebody. If it’s Lemieux or [Curtis] Stevens or any of those guys that Gennady has already fought, those are difficult fights. Canelo is going to be, I’m not going to say it’s a war, but he’s going to be in a fight where he’s tested. If it’s true Canelo is going to fight [Billy Joe] Saunders, he has the other fourth belt, Golovkin wants that other fourth belt. If Canelo wins it, he’s going to keep it for a little while. So we’re going to have to do something different. It doesn’t matter who we fight, as long as we have somebody in front of him. I don’t like the thing that happened on [December] the 10th. Things didn’t get resolved, so we don’t have a fight.”

Golden Boy is obviously going to need to match Canelo tougher in his next two fights if they want to increase his dropping pay-per-view numbers on HBO. Canelo’s last fight against WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith brought in approximately 300,000 buys on HBO last September. It was clearly a mistake on Golden Boy’s part to put Canelo in with a British fighter that the casual boxing fans in the U.S were not familiar with.

The hardcore fans in the U.S didn’t rate Smith as being among the best in the 154ln division, so Golden Boy couldn’t count on them to purchase the mismatch. It came down to Canelo’s large built in fan base in the U.S that bought the fight. Even with them, not many of them were interested in the fight despite the fact that Canelo fought on the Mexican Independence Day holiday in September. That should have meant a lot of buys for Canelo to get passively without needing to fight a quality fighter. It didn’t work this time.

Not only will Canelo need to fight good opponents in early 2017 to fight on HBO pay-per-view, but he’ll also need to fight good opponents so that he can build up the fight against Golovkin in September of next year. If Canelo and Golden Boy are serious about wanting to fight GGG, then they’ll need to do something to try and make it a bigger fight. That means no more fights against weaker opposition like welterweight Amir Khan and 154lb former paper champion Liam Smith. Canelo will need to stick his neck out by facing Lemieux, Saunders or Curtis Stevens.

It looks like Canelo will be fighting Cotto again. I don’t think that’s going to do much to build up a fight against Golovkin, because Cotto looked too small for Canelo in their fight last November. Cotto also looked played out like a fighter that has been around the sport for too long of a time. However, it’s a money fight for Canelo and for Golden Boy, so they’re very likely going to stick that match on Cinco de Mayo in May of next year if Cotto agrees to it. If not, then they’re going to need to try and make the fight happen in February or some other month that Cotto agrees to.

The only real danger for Canelo in a fight against Saunders is if he gets out-boxed by him. Saunders is a clever fighter, who won’t fight in a stupid manner the way that Liam Smith did by backing up against the ropes. This means that Canelo can’t count on winning by mistakes being made by Saunders like his last two opponents Smith and Khan. Saunders is an intelligent fighter. The only way Canelo beats Saunders is by attacking him and looking to KO him with shots in the center of the ring. That won’t be easy because Saunders doesn’t let his opponents get in close to him. He’s a mobile fighter who will be looking to box Canelo’s head off for 12 rounds. We could wind up seeing another controversial decision involving Canelo like we did in his fights against Erislandy Lara and Austin Trout. You would hope that doesn’t happen, because it won’t help build up the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight in September. We’ve already seen that Canelo doesn’t give rematches to his opponents when he wins controversial decisions. Lara was told to get in the back of the line for a rematch against Canelo by Golden Boy promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya. Trout has just been ignored entirely. He’s clearly not going to get a rematch with Canelo.

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