By Dan Ambrose: After being ignored by Miguel Cotto, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez for the past two years despite his huge success, IBF/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (32-0, 29 KOs) is still holding out hope that he can get a fight against one of those two fighters in the future if he can keep winning his fights in an impressive fashion.

Golovkin will be defending his titles this Saturday night against #2 WBA Willie Monroe Jr. (19-1, 6 KOs) on HBO Championship Boxing, and he’ll be looking to make it a real drama show by knocking the slick-fighting Monroe out.

Unlike Canelo, who fought a rusty fighter in James Kirkland who came straight at him in his last fight, Golovkin is fighting a defensive southpaw with excellent mobility and good defensive skills in Monroe. It’s a much better fighter than Kirkland, and Golovkin will be looking to impress despite Monroe’s difficult fighting style.

“I hope to get a big fight soon,” said Golovkin to ESPN.com. “I have to wait.”

Golovkin may end up waiting until he’s on the downside of his career before he gets a shot at the Golden Boy promoted Canelo, because the red-haired fighter’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya already said that he’s not going to put Caneloi in with Golovkin for another two years.

De La Hoya’s rationale for waiting two years is that the Canelo-Golovkin fight will be a much bigger one if he lets it marinate longer. It’s true it might actually wind up being a bigger fight in the future, but it also works out better for De la Hoya and Canelo to wait as long as possible before they make that fight because Golovkin is 33 now, and if they wait until he’s in his mid-30s, he may have deteriorated enough by that point in his career for Canelo to beat him.

If De La Hoya matches Canelo against Golovkin right now, Canelo would almost surely get bludgeoned into submission in an embarrassing knockout loss. That’s obviously something that De La Hoya wants to avoid at all costs. For that reason, you can expect Canelo to be matched against other guys that are nowhere near the same class as Golovkin. The only fighter that Canelo will face before that that can give him any problems is Miguel Cotto. That’s a fight that could occur in September.

Golovkin needs to win his fight this Saturday night against Monroe for him to make a case that he deserves a fight against Canelo and Kirkland.

“He [Golovkin] puts his pants on the same way I do, one leg at a time, so I can’t let people deter me from what I’m going to do – and that is become middleweight champion,” Monroe said via Skysports.com. “I believe I’m here for a reason and that reason is to win this fight. The key to this fight is imposing your will and being in control.”

Monroe doesn’t have the punching power to impose his will, and he’s not going to be able to do that running around the ring trying not to get hit by Golovkin. If he goes straight at Golovkin, he’ll get battered and likely knocked out.