By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions vice president Eric Gomez says they’re not sure when WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez will be facing IBF/IBO.WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. Gomez says the fight will happen at some point, but they’re going to want it to take place at a catch-weight because they don’t see Canelo as a middleweight.
Gomez says that Golovkin should have go give up weight by agreeing to a catch-weight because Canelo will be giving up weight to fight a true middleweight.
“Canelo is not a middleweight … if Gennady really wants to make the fight, maybe we can talk about some catch-weight where Gennady comes down [in weight] and Canelo goes up, but he’s truly a 154-pounder,” Gomez said to the latimes.com. “If Canelo is giving up weight, Gennady should, too.”
It looks like Golovkin will need to agree to the catch-weight if he wants to fight Canelo in the future. If Golovkin refuses to give Canelo the catch-weight that he and his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions, then he could wind up with Canelo’s vacated WBC title but nothing else than that. They’re obviously going to want to fight Canelo in the future at some point. It seems that Canelo will want an edge to give him a better chance of winning the fight even if he really doesn’t need a catch-weight.
Golovkin should make up his mind about how badly he wants the Canelo fight. If he wants the fight enough, then he’s going to need to give Canelo the handicap that he wants because he plans on playing the part of the 800-pound gorilla to gain an edge over him. Golovkin should just be happy that Canelo isn’t asking him to do more than melt down to 155lbs because if he really doesn’t the fight with him, he could do almost anything to keep from the fight taking place.
“We’ll make a decision after the fight,” said Gomez about the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight. “Gennady’s not the first guy to try and goad Canelo into a fight and he’s not going to be the last. That doesn’t make fights. If he thinks insulting him will make the fight, he’s mistaken. Will the fight happen? It’s going to happen. It’s a matter of when. And we’ll make the fight when we feel it’s the best time.”
Canelo is going to need Golovkin as an opponent sooner or later, because he can only pool from the 147lb division so many times before he fans catch on to the fact that he’s fighting smaller guys than himself to gain an edge.
If Canelo beats Amir Khan on May 7, then we could see a rematch between Canelo and Miguel Cotto rather than a fight against Golovkin. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya is talking about wanting to put on a second fight between Canelo and Cotto due to their previous fight last November brought in 900,000 PPV buys on HBO. Canelo can get easy money if he fights Cotto a second time because of the big weight advantage he would have over the junior middleweight sized Cotto.
Golovkin has a fight this Saturday night against Dominic Wade. Golovkin needs to win that fight, and then wait on the outcome of the Canelo vs. Amir Khan fight on May 7. Canelo will have 15 days to make up his mind after that fight whether he’ll take the Golovkin fight next. My guess is if Golovkin looks really good against Ward on Saturday, Canelo will elect to wait a year or two until Golovkin starts showing signs of aging before he finally agrees to fight him. It’ll probably still need to be at some kind of catch-weight.