By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions star Saul Canelo Alvarez reportedly entered a hospital on Friday to have knee surgery in Guadalajara, Mexico. The 27-year-old Canelo will have arthoscopy of one of his knees, according to ESPN Deportes.
Canelo was expected to meet with the Nevada State Athletic Commission on April 18 next week for his hearing on his two positive doping tests for celnbuterol, which he maintains was unintentional due him eating contaminated meat. It’s unclear whether Canelo’s knee surgery will prevent him from appearing in person to meet with the Nevada Commission on April 18. Canelo might need to phone the Committee during the hearing if his leg prevents him from traveling.
Canelo will be in the clinic until Saturday, April 14 for his knee procedure. Canelo pulled out of his scheduled May 5th rematch with IBF.IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin last week. His promoters at Golden Boy stated that there wouldn’t be enough time for the Canelo-Golovkin 2 rematch to be promoted for the May 5th date. However, it’s believed that with the likely 1-year suspension Canelo will be receiving by the Nevada Commission on April 18, it would be pointless for him to continue to be scheduled to face Golovkin on the 5th of May.
The good news about Canelo having knee surgery now is he’ll have plenty of time for him to rehab his knee before he likely returns to the ring in September of this year. Canelo won’t have to be in a rush to get ready for the fight. Hopefully, Canelo is able to come back from the injury. Former WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez was never the same fighter after he suffered a knee injury in his fight with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in 2012.
Golovkin could be facing replacement opponent Vanes Martirosyan on May 5. GGG’s promoter Tom Loeffler is attempting to work a deal with the International Boxing Federation’s mandatory challenger Sergiy Derevyanchenko to be able to steer around that fight temporarily in order to face Martirosyan on May 5th. It’s up in the air whether Loeffler will be able to make a deal with Derevyanchenko’s promoter Lou Dibella. If a deal can’t be reached, Golovkin may need to pull out of the fight.
Martirosyan is unhappy with the criticism he’s received from ESPN writer Dan Rafael, who feels that he’s not a good replacement opponent for Golovkin to be facing on May 5th.
Here’s what Martirosyan had to say about Rafael on his Twitter in the last 24 hours:
”Fat Boy you hating on me again ? why don’t you come and cheer for GGG to try knock me out while you choke on a fat hotdog. You know when the s–t goes down I’m going to see you fat boy and I’ll give you the finger in your face so you know how I Feel about you. One man hating on another man because all his life he’s going to sit on his a– choking on hot dogs never step in the ring but feels like he can down fighters I’ve met a lot of media people they have said some things about me but nobody has ever hated the way this fat f–k hates.”
Rafael would prefer that Golovkin had picked out someone like Derevyanchenko or Demetrius Andrade as the opponent or one of the other top contenders. Both of those fighters were options for GGG to fight on May 5, but his management doesn’t want to sign either of those guys.
Here’s what Dan Rafael said on his Twitter about Golovkin possibly using Martirosyan as his replacement opponent on May 5:
”And shame on the @WBCBoxing & @WBABoxing for agreeing to sanction #GGGMartirosyan when Vanes hasn’t fought for 2 years, is coming off a loss and is not a middleweight. #rawsewage Not official yet but Golovkin and promoter Tom Loeffler moving toward finalizing a May 5 fight (on HBO at StubHub Center) for GGG vs. Vanes Martirosyan, a horrendous matchup. He hasn’t boxed in two years. He’s never fought as a middleweight.”
Rafael brings up some good points about the 31-year-old Martirosyan not being a middleweight, having lost his last fight against Erislandy Lara, and having been out of the ring for approximately 2 years. That’s a lot of negatives going against Martirosyan being a good option for the fight with Golovkin. However, Golovkin’s previously desired opponent Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan is no longer available to take the fight with him after his promoter Eric Gomez stated that the money wasn’t good enough and there wasn’t enough time to prepare for the May 5th fight. Loeffler is seemingly desperate at this point to find an opponent for Golovkin to face on that date.
When active, Martirosyan is a good fighter, and he didn’t deserve his loss to Jermell Charlo in 2015. Martirosyan has only been clearly beaten twice in his career to Lara and Demetrice Andrade, and both of those losses were due to him having stamina issues in the second half of the contests. Martirosyan is obviously not a middleweight, but he’s arguably a step up from O’Sullivan in terms of his talent. Martirosyan is a better fighter than O’Sullivan, and he has a bigger fan base in Southern California. Golovkin’s May 5th fight has been moved from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada to the StubHub Center in Carson, California. What Golovkin needs is an opponent like Martirosyan that has a lot of boxing fans in the area that can purchase tickets for the May 5th fight, because there isn’t going to be a lot of time to market the contest due to Canelo and O’Sullivan both pulling out of the fight.