By Dan Ambrose: Former 2 division world champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs) says that if he does fight middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) in the future, it will be without his World Boxing Council 160-pound title on the line. Canelo doesn’t like how he was treated last year by the WBC when he was their WBC middleweight champion. Canelo says he was dealing with a court case in Miami, Florida at the time the WBC wanted him to defend the belt against GGG.
Canelo ended up vacating the WBC title instead of facing Golovkin. Canelo says the WBC made it seem like he was afraid of Golovkin, and he’s not, Canelo says not afraid of anyone in boxing. Whenever Canelo does fight Golovkin, it will be for his other belts, he says.
Golovkin just turned 35-years-old and he and promoter Tom Loeffler are waiting patiently for the dust to clear from this Saturday’s Canelo vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (50-2-1, 32 KOs) at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Golovkin wants the winner of the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight, period. He’s ready to fight either of them. The Canelo fight is obviously the one that Golovkin wants a great deal, because he’s a popular fighter in the boxing world, and he’d like to test himself against him. But fighting the winner of the Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. is the more logical thing for GGG.
“For me, I’m always thankful and respectful,” said Canelo to the boxing media on Tuesday. “For me, it’s to be appreciative. That’s why I’ve had my team from the beginning. I’ve never been disloyal to the, to the people, to my people, to the press, and no one because I’m appreciative. I’m not grateful to the WBC, nope. They made us look like we let the [WBC middleweight championship] title vacate or give it away to Golovkin. We had that legal thing in Miami. We were in court, and they wanted us to resolve everything [defend the WBC middleweight belt against Golovkin] while we were in court. So we had a lot of things going on, and they made us look like I gave the belt away because I was afraid. No, I’m not afraid of anyone. if that fight happens, it will be without the WBC belt. It will be for the other belts and that’s it, without the WBC. Why, because he acted wrong. How was he going to push for that when I had another problem, and forcing that problem, push, push and push,” said Canelo.
At this point in the game, I think the boxing fans would just happy to see Canelo agree to fight Golovkin regardless of whether titles are on the line. The fans just want to see Canelo take the fight so that they can find out which of the two is the better fighter. Regrettably, the cat is already out of the bag, as far as many in the boxing world thinking that Canelo ducked the Golovkin fight.
It’s hard to change the minds of fans because many of them feel that Canelo has had a chance to fight Golovkin for the past 2 years, but he didn’t. It’s not just last year that Canelo had an opportunity to put together a fight with GGG. This is a fight that Golovkin has been pushing for since 2015, and he’s been put on hold by Canelo and his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions. That’s why what Canelo says now about the WBC making him seem afraid is not likely to be believed by the boxing public. If Canelo wanted the fight with Golovkin, he could have taken it in 2015 or he could have faced him in May of last year when he chose to face welterweight Amir Khan.
It was not a good look for Canelo to defend his WBC title against Khan last year in May. Golovkin wanted to fight Canelo at that time, and that’s a fight could have been made if there was interest from his part and Golden Boy. They chose Khan. Canelo then vacated the WBC title rather than fight Golovkin. Giving up the WBC title was not a good choice for Canelo. He should have defended it against Golovkin last May instead of welterweight Amir Khan. It wasn’t the WBC that told Canelo to fight Khan. That was his and Golden Boy’s move.
It was obviously a business decision for Canelo and Golden Boy to take a safe fight against a much lighter fighter in Khan instead of facing someone his own size in Golovkin. What further made Canelo look bad to the fans was how he called out Golovkin inside the ring after knocking out Khan. By doing that, Canelo made it seem like he was ready to fight Golovkin in his next fight. It got the boxing fans excited about seeing that match-up. Unfortunately, instead of Canelo facing Golovkin in his next fight, he chose to move down to 154 and face WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith on September 17 last year. That was not a good move by Canelo, because if further made him look like he was afraid of Golovkin.
It also made Canelo look to some boxing fans like he was afraid to fight the likes of IBF 154lb champion Jermall Charlo, who at the time was viewed by many fans at the best fighter in the division. Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya said that they had selected Liam Smith for Canelo because he was the best fighter in the 154lb division. That was a statement that was hard for the hardcore boxing fans to swallow, because they knew Smith wasn’t the best or even the second best. He was just a champion that had beaten some John Thompson to win the vacant WBO belt.
Canelo would look better if he just stayed quiet about his reasons for not fighting Golovkin. I don’t think he’s going to be able to convince a lot of fans that the reason he didn’t fight GGG in 2016 is because he was mired down in a court case in Miami. The fans are going to wonder why Canelo didn’t fight Golovkin last May instead of facing Khan. The fans will wonder why Canelo didn’t fight Golovkin last September instead of facing Liam Smith.
The fans will also wonder why Canelo isn’t facing Golovkin this Saturday night instead of facing Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., who hasn’t done much with his career since his loss to Sergio Martinez in 2012. Canelo is moving up in weight 10 pounds to face Chavez Jr. at a catch-weight of 164.5 pounds on Saturday. That’s an admirable thing for Canelo to be doing, but he’s not fighting the best super middleweight in the division. There are better fighters than Chavez Jr. at 168. Their fight is viewed as a business fight rather than a sporting match.
Canelo disappointed a lot of fans last year by not fighting Golovkin. He can’t put it on the WBC. I don’t think the boxing fans are going to believe that for a second. The fans wanted to see Canelo fight Golovkin in 2016 instead of Khan and Liam Smith. It’s Canelo that is facing the wrong guys. The WBC didn’t order Canelo to face Khan and Liam Smith instead of Golovkin.
Canelo has a chance this September to win back the boxing fans that he lost last year if he fights Golovkin. If instead he chooses not to fight GGG, and opts to face Chavez Jr. in a rematch or David Lemieux, then you can expect a lot of Canelo’s fans to trickle away and move on. Canelo needs to start facing the best rather than looking for winnable business fights against ring rusty or smaller and older opposition.
