By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions lost five of their biggest fighters on Friday to Al Haymon in losing Adrien Broner, Deontayu Wilder, Marcos Maidana, Danny Garcia and Danny Jacobs.
The loss of some of their major players has really thinned out the talent pool for Golden Boy Promotions, leaving the 24-year-old former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) as pretty much the only big name that Golden Boy Promotions has in their stable.
While it’s nice that they still have the red-haired Canelo, it could lead to Golden Boy president Oscar De La Hoya getting more protective of him. This is something that Steve Kim talked about it, and it’s quite possible we could see this happening in reality.
If Golden Boy’s main flagship fighter is the popular Canelo, they might see it as too risky to keep putting Canelo in against tough opposition that will further expose him more than he already has been in his fights against Erislandy Lara, Austin Trout and Floyd Mayweather Jr.
We’ve already seen Canelo exposed in those fights to be a limited flat-footed fighter without the speed, skills and movement needed for him to shine. If Canelo keeps getting matched tough, it’s likely only a matter of time before his star dims and he becomes another Fernando Vargas after he was exposed in losses to De La Hoya and Felix Trinidad.
For that reason I wouldn’t be at all surprised if De La Hoya puts the clamps on Canelo, choosing to keep him away from the likes of Mayweather and Lara in rematches.
The Miguel Cotto fight is something that is already a wheel set in motion, so De La Hoya can’t really stop negotiating for that fight because Canelo wants the bout. However, no matter what happens in that fight, you can expect De La Hoya to back Canelo off from tough opposition of this kind.
What we’ll see after this is Canelo being steered around Gennady Golovkin, regardless if Canelo picks up the WBC middleweight title or not. We’ll also likely see De La Hoya keep Canelo away from David Lemieux, a fighter who is in the process of joining Golden Boy Promotions.
De Hoya has repeatedly said that Canelo will be the guy that takes over for Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao as the top pay-per-view fighter for the next 10 years.
De La Hoya can increase Canelo’s chances of becoming that fighter if he puts him on a soft diet of beatable welterweights, junior middleweights and middleweights for the next decade in order to make sure he keeps winning. The casual boxing fans won’t be the wiser because they only have a scant knowledge about the sport.
Comments are closed.