By Dan Ambrose: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) has now officially been the WBC middleweight champion for 10 days, and he now has 5 more days to begin negotiations with his #1 WBC mandatory challenger Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) before the World Boxing Council is supposed to step in and strip the 25-year-old Canelo of his WBC 160lb title.
Thus far, there’s been no world from Canelo’s camp about whether or not they’re going to defend the WBC title against Golovkin. The only thing we’ve heard is Canelo’s trainer Eddy Reynoso saying that they don’t plan on moving off of the 155 pound catch-weight that they’ve been fighting at for the last two years.
Canelo even went so far as to say that he doesn’t have to do what Golovkin wants him to do by fighting at 160, and if he wants to fight, he’ll need to fight at 155.
The big question is will the WBC enforce their 15 day rule by stepping in to strip Canelo if he chooses not to start negotiations with Golovkin. There’s a possibility that the WBC will let Canelo take a voluntary defense or two before they try and nudge him into defending the title against Golovkin.
This wouldn’t make sense because the WBC was saying before Canelo’s last fight against former WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto last month that the winner of the fight had 15 days to start negotiations with Golovkin. If the WBC is going to change their mind about the 15 day thing now, it’s going to look really bad in the eyes of boxing fans.
“I have respect for him [Golovkin], but if we do fight, it’s going to be at my [natural] weight class [of 155 pounds]. I’m the champion. I don’t have to do what he wants,” Canelo said to ESPN.com.
Canelo appears to believe that he can force his mandatory challenger Golovkin into fighting him at a catch-weight for his next fight. If the WBC is going to allow their champions to force their mandatory challengers to agree to catch-fights, then they’re going to need to write that into their rules and make it be known to all.
That doesn’t make a lot of sense for champions to be able to force their mandatory challengers to agree to a catch-weight. It’s bad enough that a champion can use their power to get their voluntary challengers to agree to a catch-weight to fight them, but when they can do it with their mandatory challengers as well, it really tilts the playing field in favor of champions that can use this power over their opponents.
Ultimately, it’s up to the WBC to determine what weight the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight can take place at. If they’re good with Canelo telling Golovkin that the fight must be at a catch-weight of 155 or whatever, then there’s not much Golovkin can do about it other than agree to it or not.
“From now we are not going to move from 155-pounds,” Reynoso said to ESPN Deportes. “We are quite comfortable at this weight and it suits us. We are not inventing a new division; it’s just part of business and everyone looks for what suits them, and whoever wants to fight with Saul will have to come down or go up.”
Canelo’s trainer Eddy Reynoso says that they’re not creating a new division by asking their opponents to fight them at 155, but you can make an argument that they are creating a new division because it’s division where the opponents have to make the 155 or less in order to make the fight happen. Normally divisions have weight parameters, but by saying the fight has to be at 155, it makes it potentially difficult on true middleweights to make that weight, because they’re coming in potentially five pounds over the upper limit of the 160lb division.
What’s more important than the weight of Canelo’s next fight though is whether he’s going to be allowed to ignore his mandatory challenger Golovkin and take voluntary defenses instead? If the WBC is going to let Canelo do this, then the next question is how many voluntary defenses will the WBC allow for Canelo to take before they put their foot down and tell him that he finally needs to defend their WBC title against Golovkin.
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