By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya gave a big hint last night that we could be seeing his fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) dodging a unification fight against IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) if Canelo defeats WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) in their fight next month on November 21st at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
De La Hoya said last night that the Golovkin-Canelo fight will happen sooner or later. This could be code for Canelo not facing Golovkin for some time, possibly two to three years.
“Absolutely, it’s a fight [Golovkin vs. Canelo] that should be made,” De La Hoya said to secondsout. “Eventually it’s going to happen. Golovkin won hands down, and I take my hat off to him, but it’s raw power. You’re talking about a fighter who has fought a lot of fighters with a lot of styles. There’s a lot of vulnerability there. So a Canelo fight against Golovkin, it has to happen.”
When someone says it will “eventually” happen, it often means that it either won’t ever happen at all or it will happen a long time in the future. For example, if you ask a girl out and she says we’ll go out “eventually,” it stands to reason that you’re going to be waiting a long, long time for that date.
I think De La Hoya is not interested in putting his golden goose Canelo in with Golovkin right now while the Kazakhstan fighter is still young at 33 and in his prime. But in two to four years, Golovkin could be old enough for Canelo to beat him.
What De La Hoya obviously doesn’t want is to see his golden goose Canelo plucked clean in front of the entire world in early 2016 by Golovkin, and then wind up with a useless goose. De La Hoya already had a big blow to his Golden Boy stable take place last night when Golovkin beaten up and humiliated his golden goose 2.0, David Lemieux, in stopping him in the 8th round at Madison Square Garden in New York.
The last thing that De La Hoya needs is for Golovkin to pluck clean his flagship fighter Canelo. Lemieux’s goose is now cooked, and the same thing would likely happen to the golden goose Canelo if he were to mix it up with Golovkin. But if De La Hoya waits for Golovkin to age nicely to about 37, so that he can be tenderized by Canelo, then there’s a possibility that the fight can be made and Canelo can win. But if De La Hoya throws Canelo in the ring with Golovkin now, I see him being in a world of hurt. De La Hoya would then have very little to show for in his Golden Boy stable.
You can make an argument that Golden Boy fighter Tureano Johnson might be the best middleweight that De La Hoya has. Johnson certainly was the 2nd best middleweight on the Golovkin-Lemieux card last night. I think Johnson would have done a much better job against Golovkin than the overrated Lemieux.
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