De La Hoya says Canelo-Golovkin match depends on outcome of Chavez Jr. fight

By Boxing News - 02/24/2017 - Comments

Image: De La Hoya says Canelo-Golovkin match depends on outcome of Chavez Jr. fight

By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya says that he still hopes to match Saul “Canelo” Alvarez against Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in September, but it depends on how things go in May 6 fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Canelo (48-1-1, 34 KOs) is fighting Chavez Jr. (50-2-1, 32 KOs) on HBO pay-per-view at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

De La Hoya says that if Canelo loses to Chavez Jr. or if there fight is very exciting for the boxing public, then there would be a rematch. Golden Boy already has plans for Canelo to fight Miguel Cotto in December, and that’s obviously not going to change.

Cotto is retiring at this end of this year, so Golden Boy won’t be missing out on matching Canelo up against him in a rematch. What this means for Golovkin is that he would have to likely wait until May 2018 before facing Canelo. Even then, it would likely depend on how things go for Canelo in the second fight against Chavez Jr. and in his rematch with Cotto. If those fights are exciting and they bring in a ton of pay-per-view buys on HBO, then it’s possible De La Hoya can shoot for more rematches before he eventually matches Canelo against Golovkin.

De La Hoya said this to the Houston Chronicle about him still planning on matching Canelo against Golovkin in September:

“I’ve said it all along that Canelo will fight Triple G in September,” said De La Hoya. “We can’t make the Golovkin fight yet, because we have to fight this fight first. But I’ll say it again: the only way Canelo doesn’t fight GGG in September is if he loses this fight [against Chavez Jr.] of if this fight or if this fight is so exciting that the fans demand a rematch. It’s the fight the fans want, and it’s the fight we want,” said De La Hoya.

Chavez Jr. vs. Canelo will very likely be an exciting fight that will be competitive. That’s almost a given. Canelo isn’t big enough and he doesn’t possess the stamina to just roll over the 6’0” Chavez Jr. like he did welterweight Amir Khan last May. Canelo even had problems in his last fight against WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith last September. Smith had Canelo on the ropes much of the fight and was pounding him to the body.

Chavez Jr. is an upgrade over Liam Smith. You can pretty much assume that the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight will be exciting enough for De La Hoya to stick them back inside the ring in September for a rematch on HBO PPV. It would also give De La Hoya an excuse to kick the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight further down the road into the future. That would allow Canelo and Golden Boy to increase their fortunes with the Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. rematches until they finally make the fight with Golovkin.

A lot people already suspect that De Hoya won’t make the fight with Golovkin this year, and that he’ll wait until 2018 at the earliest before he decides to make the fight between him and Canelo.

Whether De La Hoya is serious about wanting to still make the Canelo-Golovkin fight in September is an important question that the boxing fans would like to know. In this sport, promoters tend to create hype for future fights in order to help drive interest for their fighters’ next match. In this case, De La Hoya might be name dropping Golovkin’s name in order to get the fans interested in paying to see Canelo’s next bout against Chavez Jr. on HBO PPV on May 6.

The more De La Hoya brings up Golovkin’s name in regards to Canelo, the more it will likely create interest in the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight. We saw how welterweight stars Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao were able to create interest in their fights against other lesser fighters for six year period before they eventually faced each other in a mega-fight in 2015.

After they finally fought each other, their pay-per-view numbers dropped off dramatically in their next fights. Is De La Hoya playing the same game by name dropping Golovkin’s name to create interest in Canelo’s fights? Only De La Hoya knows. It will be interesting to see how long De La Hoya drags the Canelo-Golovkin fight out before he eventually puts them in together.

It helps Canelo for the Golovkin fight to be pushed as far into the future as possible, because the Kazakhstan fighter is 34-years-old right now. Golovkin hasn’t lost his power, as we saw in his last fight against Kell Brook. Golovkin’s jab is still as powerful as it once was. Some boxing fans think Golovkin didn’t look so great against Brook, but you can argue the reason for that is because he was forced to chase him around the ring before he finally stopped him.

Golovkin’s opposition doesn’t usually move as much as Brook did. For the most part, middleweights don’t move as well as welterweights. Brook was on the run for most of the fight until he stopped fighting in round 5 because of an eye injury he had suffered early on.

De La Hoya didn’t mention the potential of Golovkin losing his next fight against Daniel Jacobs on March 18. That’s something that could really get in the way of the Canelo-Golovkin fight more than anything.

Jacobs is viewed as the best opponent that Golovkin has ever faced during his pro career. Jacobs is also the biggest guy that Golovkin has faced. Jacobs has spent most of his career fighting at super middleweight, although he’s technically been fighting in the middleweight division all these years. Jacobs has weighed over the 160lb limit in 24 of his 33 fights as a pro. Jacobs has only had 9 fights within the 160 pound limit during his 10-year pro career.

Golovkin is a small middleweight, who could easily be fighting in the 154lb division if he wanted to. Golovkin might not be able to deal with Jacobs’ big size advantage in this fight. If Golovkin loses the fight to Jacobs, then that could upset De La Hoya’s plans on matching Canelo against him. He would have to look at putting Canelo in with Jacobs instead.

I’m not sure that De La Hoya will be as eager to make that fight though, because Jacobs doesn’t have the fan base that Golovkin has. Further, the 6-foot Jacobs would have a big 4 inch height and a 3 inch reach advantage over Canelo. Jacobs is only 29, so it really doesn’t help De La Hoya to wait him out until he’s older before matching Canelo against him.