By Dan Ambrose: There is some disagreement about whether WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) should have to fight mandatory challenger Gennady Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) at the full weight for the middleweight division at 160lbs instead of at a catch-weight of his own personal choosing.
According to trainer Robert Garcia, Canelo does not have to fight Golovkin at 160. Garcia does not see any point in Canelo fighting Golovkin at 160, because he believes he can make more money fighting the Kazakhstan fighter in two or three years than he can right now.
Garcia is convinced that there is more money for Canelo to make if he waits several years before electing to fight Golovkin. Garcia believes that the fight would be bigger just like the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao fight turned out to be bigger after Mayweather waited five years before he agreed to fight Pacquiao.
“I don’t know why he [Canelo] has haters,” Robert Garcia said to esnewsreporting. “He’s fighting great. He’s fighting the right people. He’s also very young too, so why would people be hating on him. He [Canelo] has a promoter that’s making decisions for him. He just clearly beat Cotto. Cotto is not an easy opponent. He clearly beat him. So why should people hate him? Why because he doesn’t want to fight Triple G at 160. He doesn’t have to. Why should he. Nobody is hating on [Floyd] Mayweather and he waited how long before fighting Pacquiao? 5 years? He did the right thing. He made more money than he had ever made. Maybe Canelo has the same plan. Two to three years from now make double or triple the money he would make right now. This is business. He’s young. He still has 10 more years of his life in this business. You have to be smart about it. A good businessman can’t go all out in one year and then lose everything for the rest of his career,” Garcia said.
I think it’s bad for the sport of boxing to have champions that avoid the top fighters, and who don’t want to fight at the full weight for the divisions that they hold titles in. It would sad if Canelo becomes the first world champion in the history of the sport who insists on using catch-weight handicaps to gain an advantage over his opponents. Having Canelo avoid someone like Golovkin is one thing, which I what Garcia is saying he should do, but to use catch-weights as a champion is taking things to another level.
Will be there more money for a Canelo vs. Golovkin fight if Canelo waits three years before fighting them? I doubt it.
The problem with Robert Garcia’s idea of having Canelo let a fight against Golovkin marinate is that Canelo will likely be beaten in the next three years by one of the guys Golden Boy puts him in with. The only way I can see Canelo win all of his fights in the next three years is for Golden Boy to put him in showcase fights where he’s facing guys that are nowhere near as talented as him. Unfortunately, we’re already kind of seeing that with Golden Boy matching Canelo against low quality opponents like James Kirkland and Alfredo Angulo. Canelo’s fights against Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara were both Canelo’s ideas, as Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy reportedly wasn’t interested in making those two difficult fights for Canelo.
You can only wonder who De La Hoya wanted Canelo to fight instead of them. We do know that 38-year-old Joshua Clottey was a fighter that Golden Boy wanted to match against Canelo last year in December. That would have been a nice mismatch along the lines of Canelo’s mismatches against Kirkland and Angulo. If Canelo is matched against some of the good middleweights and junior middleweights, I see him losing. You cannot really put Canelo in with guys like Jermall Charlo and Demetrius Andrade, because there would be too much of a chance of Canelo losing those fights.
There are some fans who dislike Canelo. They seem to dislike Canelo because of his use of catch-weights, and because he appears to be heavier than many of his opponents. Some of these fans compare Canelo to Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, a fighter who used to drain down in weight to fight at middleweight, where he would have a big weight advantage over his lighter opponents. Some fans see Canelo as doing the exact same thing and doing well with his size advantage. These fans wonder if Canelo would be able to do well if he fought in the correct weight class by fighting at super middleweight or light heavyweight, where he wouldn’t be heavier than most of his opponents.
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