De La Hoya says Canelo could fight Chavez Jr. three times

By Boxing News - 01/20/2017 - Comments

Image: De La Hoya says Canelo could fight Chavez Jr. three times

By Dan Ambrose: After talking for months about Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fighting middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in 2017, Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya is now saying that the fight might not happen this year, because there’s a possibility of a rematch between Canelo and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (50-2-1, 32 KOs) taking place. In fact, De La Hoya says the Canelo and Chavez Jr. could fight a trilogy against each other.

In that case, Canelo would fight Chavez Jr. on May 6 on the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo, then on the Mexican Independence Day holiday in September, and finally in December. However, De La Hoya might still put Canelo in with Miguel Cotto for December, and then match Canelo against Chavez Jr. in May of 2018 for the third fight between them.

The rematches between Canelo and Chavez Jr. would require there previous fights being competitive ones, which is why Canelo is fighting Miguel Cotto again. De La Hoya would likely make the rematch with Canelo and Cotto again even if their previous fight in 2015 was a one-sided affair, because the fight brought in a ton of pay-per-view buys with 900,000 buys on HBO. Cotto says he wants to retire at the end of 2017, so that’s the reason why De La Hoya will almost surely match Canelo against him this year.

Golovkin is obviously less important, because he’s not going anywhere, and he’s aging. I think that’s most important thing. Canelo stands a better chance against Golovkin if the fight can be delayed for as long as possible.

Right now, the 34-year-old Golovkin is likely still young enough to make easy work of Canelo and turn him into another David Lemieux. But that could change in a year or two. Fighters can get old overnight, and Golovkin might be old enough for Canelo to beat him in 2018. If not, then De La Hoya might need to drag out Chavez Jr. for a fourth fight for Canelo.

De La Hoya said this to ESPN Deportes about Canelo, Chavez Jr. and Golovkin:

“I have always said that Canelo is going to fight with GGG this year,” De La Hoya said. “That has always been the goal, the plan. The only reason that we wouldn’t make that fight is because the Chavez fight with Canelo could be a war, maybe it ends in a draw – that would force a rematch. The plan is for Canelo to fight three times and to have big fights like Chavez and GGG. [Canelo vs. GGG] depends on the May fight. I’ve always said that Canelo is going to fight GGG in 2017 and that’s the plan, but that depends on this fight, because there could be a rematch, a trilogy – it could be The Fight of The Year.”

If De La Hoya doesn’t put Canelo in with Golovkin in 2017, it’s going to make a lot of boxing fans angry. They’re going to see Canelo as being afraid of GGG. They’re also going to see De La Hoya and Canelo focused more on business side rather than on the sport. De La Hoya has put himself and Canelo in a hole by saying repeatedly to the boxing media that he would make the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight in 2017.

If De La Hoya fails to do this, it could be bad. I think there would be a lot of angry boxing fans jumping ship from the Canelo express.

Normally, De La Hoya’s confession that he might kick the Golovkin fight down the road would be seen as bad news for boxing fans, but the reality is that Canelo is likely going to make easy work of the slow, inactive past his best Chavez Jr. on May 6. Unless Canelo carries Chavez Jr. and fights at only one-quarter speed and not really fighting at his best, this is going to be a mismatch. There won’t be a reason for Canelo and Chavez Jr. to EVER fight again.

If Canelo fights at maximum ability, he’ll very likely easily beat Chavez Jr. The bad thing about the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight is that Canelo can take it easy on Chavez Jr., rest against the ropes for many rounds, and not put his foot down on the accelerator, and he’ll still win the fight. If it goes to the scorecards for a decision win for Canelo, then that might be enough of a reason for De La Hoya to stick them in with each other for a second fight.

Canelo would likely need to take it easy on Chavez Jr. for there to be any reason for a rematch. I think it would look obvious though if Canelo purposefully just played around and fought at half speed in this fight, but you never know. Some boxing fans would blame Canelo’s off performance on the extra weight that he’ll be putting on o fight at the catch-weight of 164 ½ pounds.

The main thing that will be needed for Canelo and Chavez Jr. fight to have a rematch is for the two fighters to bring in a lot of PPV buys on HBO. If the fight doesn’t do a lot of buys, then that will be a major factor in whether there’s a rematch. But you never know with De La Hoya. Might still put Canelo and Chavez Jr. back in with each other in a rematch anyway, because it gives more time to let Golovkin age.

2017 might still be too early for De La Hoya to put the 26-year-old Canelo in with Golovkin. Canelo has a very basic game of him having to work in close range to throw his short left hooks and straight right hands. Canelo can’t fight from the outside, and never could.

All Golovkin would have to do to beat Canelo is jab him from the outside like Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Erislandy Lara both did. Of course, Golovkin would need the judges to score the fight in a logical manner. We saw how Lara lost to Canelo despite appearing to beat him in their fight in 2014. It might be hard for Golovkin to get a decision over a popular fighter like Canelo. He might need to take the judges out of the equation completely.