By Dan Ambrose: WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman says he’s extending the negotiations between WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) and #1 WBC mandatory challenger Gennady “Triple G” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) until Monday. It’s unknown what Sulaiman will do when Monday comes around and there’s still no deal for a fight between them.
Going by what Sulaiman has been doing recently, he’ll likely give Canelo another extension for the negotiations rather than playing hardball by ordering a purse bid or threatening to strip him of his WBC title.
Sulaiman recently extended the negotiations because he felt that the Thanksgiving Day holiday had possibly slowed down the negotiations. What we don’t want to see is Sulaiman using the upcoming Christmas holiday as another excuse to further extend the negotiations.
The WBC can’t keep moving the goal post to let the Canelo vs. Golovkin negotiations drag on indefinitely. The fight doesn’t need to be marinated further. This also means that the World Boxing Council shouldn’t let Canelo get one or two voluntary defenses in before he faces Canelo. The winner of the Miguel Cotto vs. Canelo fight was supposed to face Golovkin next.
Golovkin already stepped aside once so that Canelo could fight Cotto instead of Golovkin getting the chance to fight for the WBC title. If the WBC is going to try and get Golovkin to step aside again for the WBC champion to get in a voluntary defense or two, then I think it will setup a potentially never-ending situation where Golovkin is made to wait foirever without getting a chance at the WBC title.
Being an event of great importance and the wishes of both parties @WBCBoxing extends until monday ruling on division pic.twitter.com/bo431ZNDQl
— Mauricio Sulaiman (@wbcmoro) December 12, 2015
There are some boxing fans who feel that the WBC and Canelo are hoping that Golovkin was get tired of all the foot dragging and will give up interest in making the fight. Other fans believe that they’re hoping that Golovkin will get old enough for the 25-year-old to beat him.
The WBC needs to stop extending the negotiations and instead do their job by stripping Canelo if he doesn’t want to make the fight happen. If Canelo is going to insist on a catch-weight handicap for his fight against Golovkin, then the WBC needs to step in like a parent and calmly inform him that catch-weight handicaps can’t be enforced for mandatory title defenses.
If Canelo feels that he needs a catch-weight handicap after the Golovkin fight, then he can cram own his opponent’s throat if he still has his WBC title afterwards.
My understanding is that champions like Canelo can force their voluntary challengers to accept catch-weight fights as a condition to get a title shot, but not the mandatory challengers. If Canelo is unclear on that subject, then Sulaiman needs to educate him about it. Once Canelo understands that he cannot force Golovkin to fight him at a catch-weight, Canelo can then either vacate the title in order to avoid fighting him at 160, or agree to take the fight at the full weight for the middleweight division.
The WBC needs to be firm with Canelo by giving a final date for when the negotiations should be completed. What we don’t want is Canelo to feel that he’s above the rules of the WBC, and can force his own weight division of 155lbs to be the new division for the WBC middleweight division.
Here’s what the World Boxing Council had to say about the Canelo vs. Golovkin negotiations today in a press release:
STATUS OF THE WBC MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP
In the last few days, the WBC has been working diligently with all interested parties to ultimately facilitate the fight between WBC Middleweight World Champion Saul Alvarez and WBC Middleweight Interim Champion Gennady Golovkin. That bout carries enormous implications and is of great importance for boxing, both in terms of history and for the future of the sport.
Many details must be addressed for or a Super-Fight of that magnitude to actually occur. The boxers’ respective promoters, Golden Boy Promotions and K2 Promotions, have been communicating in good faith to finalize the details of the negotiations for the contest to come to fruition. Recognizing that their discussions have been ongoing, the WBC has given the parties the flexibility to continue to work amicably to finalize terms, with the ultimate goal being that the two champions meet in the ring.
In order to bring closure to the negotiations, the WBC plans to attend an in-person session between the two promotional companies this weekend in Los Angeles. The WBC’s goal is to facilitate this fight, which will be of tremendous magnitude for the sport of boxing and its fans all over the world.
We don’t need the WBC to go into the dark ages where the rules about weight classes are ignored by a popular champion. We don’t need a champion for life, which is what we might get if Canelo is allowed by the WBC to twist the WBC middleweight title into the WBC 155lb title instead.
It seems to me that Canelo would be better off without no title at all because if he didn’t have a title, he could tell any opponent that wants to fight him that they either need to agree to his 155lb catch-weight handicap or they get no fight. Where it gets complicated is when Canelo tries the same thing while he’s holding down the WBC middleweight title.
It’ll be interesting to see if the WBC grants Canelo another extension when Monday comes and goes.
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