By Dan Ambrose: According to Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions, his fighter IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) will not be negotiating with WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) about which weight the two of them will fight at later this year when/if their fight takes place.
Golovkin will fight at 160 without any catch-weights, period. If Canelo doesn’t want to fight Golovkin under those circumstances, then he can choose to vacate the title if he wants. But as for Golovkin fighting Canelo at a catch-weight handicap, Loeffler says that’s not going to happen.
This is bad news for Canelo, because he’s used a catch-weight of 155lbs for his last four fights, and he’s become very good at making this weight. If Golovkin had to boil down to make 155 for a fight against Canelo, the chances are he would be weakened enough for Canelo to get some kind of edge against him. We are talking about a 33-year-old fighter in Golovkin, and it’s not easier for older fighters to takeoff weight and put it back on quickly, especially if they’re not accustomed to doing this.
“In our particular instance against Canelo there wouldn’t be any negotiations about the weight,” Loeffler said to skysports.com. “It would be two middleweight champions fighting each other at 160lbs. Now if Canelo vacates the title and it becomes a voluntary fight down the road in 2017, then anything is negotiable – the money, location and weight.”
Loeffler may have inadvertently tipped his hand by saying that Golovkin would be open to fighting at catch-weight if Canelo is no longer the champion. By saying that, Loeffler may give some ideas to Canelo about vacating his WBC title and then looking to get a catch-weight fight against Canelo as the challenger. I wouldn’t put that move past Canelo to try and get the 155lb catch-weight handicap.
Loeffler says that Canelo actually outweighs Golovkin when he rehydrates to the mid-170s for his fights. Loeffler doesn’t see it as a hardship for Canelo to make weight at the full weight of 160lbs, given that he’s capable of rehydrating to a higher weight than Golovkin for his fights.
You can make an argument that Canelo would be stronger if he fought at the full 160lbs instead of at a catch-weight of 155lbs, because this could allow Canelo to rehydrate to even higher weights. Instead of Canelo coming into his fights at 175, he could rehydrate to the 180s if he’s not already doing that.
It’s unclear how much Canelo weighed for his last fight against Miguel Cotto last November because he wasn’t weighed by HBO before he stepped foot inside the ring the night of the fight. Cotto’s trainer Freddie Roach estimated that Canelo put on 30 pounds of weight after he rehydrated following the weigh-in the day before the fight. Canelo weigh-in at 155lbs. This would mean that Canelo rehydrated to 185 if he put on 30 pounds like Roach says.
Pretty sure this punch shifted his hairline. Just a weird angle, had to hurt. pic.twitter.com/ITsbOOTAWW
— Gennady Golovkin (@GGGBoxing) January 28, 2016
“What a lot of people don’t realize is that Canelo actually fights heavier than Gennady. He’ll walk into the ring at 175lbs even if he weighs in lower, so it’s not a disadvantage for him to fight us at 160lbs,” Loeffler said.
What we don’t know is what Canelo will do if he can’t get the 155lb catch-weight that he’s become kind of fond of. Will Canelo hit the nuclear button and just vacate his WBC title because he’s not able to get his way of fighting at 155lbs, or will he choose to agree to fight at the full weight for the middleweight division like past warriors of the sport? It’s going to be interesting to see what Canelo does. You’d hate to see him have a tantrum and vacate his WBC title because he can’t get his way with a catch-weight handicap to weaken Golovkin.
It would be a situation where both fighters would lose if Canelo goes nuclear. Canelo will lose because he’ll be seen giving up his WBC title without a fight, and many boxing fans will assume that he did so in order to duck Golovkin. That would be a negative for Canelo. Golovkin would lose because he wouldn’t get a big payday fight against Canelo, and he wouldn’t be able to show that he’s the better fighter than him by knocking him out in front of the entire world. It probably hurts Golovkin more than Canelo because he needs the fight against Canelo right now to get to the next level in terms of his popularity.
“Under current circumstances he is mandated to defend his middleweight title. There’s a 50 percent chance of it happening – they could give up the title because they don’t want to fight Gennady,” Loeffler said. “Canelo has just won the title, and they’ve said they want to make one defence before he fights Gennady to build up the fight. That’s where we’re at, right now. It’s in the writing that Canelo fights Gennady or his status as champion will be vacated by the WBC.”
Loeffler doesn’t seem too optimistic that Canelo will accept the fight with Golovkin without a catch-weight handicap. Loeffler only thinks there’s a 50 percent chance of the fight taking place. That’s not very good, but he’s probably right. There’s a good chance that once Canelo discovers that he’s not going to be able to use his 155lb strength-draining catch-weight handicap, he might stamp his feet and choose to just walk away from the fight altogether rather than give in to Golovkin and Loeffler’s wishes.
The thing is Golovkin and Loeffler aren’t playing hardball by asking something out of this world for the fight to take place. They just want to be able to fight at the full weight for the division without handicapping themselves. I could see Canelo not being happy if Golovkin and Loeffler were asking that the fight take place at 168lbs instead of at 160. It wouldn’t be a regulation fight for the WBC title middleweight title to be on the line.
If this was a voluntary defense for Canelo, then he could give Golovkin a take it or left it offer by saying that he either agrees to fight at 155 or no fight. But with Golovkin being the WBC mandatory challenger, Canelo can’t force a catch-weight on the fight. The only thing he can do tell him that unless he agrees to the 155lb catch-weight, he’ll vacate the title and go off and fight whoever he pleases.
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