By Patrick McHugh: Gennady Golovkin reminded the media on Thursday that he has no intentions whatsoever in placating WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) by coming down to 155lbs to fight him at a catch-weight of 155lbs in September of this year. Golovkin says he’d move down to 154 for a superstar like Floyd Mayweather Jr., but not for a fighter like Canelo.
Golovkin’s comment basically means there won’t be a fight between him and Canelo in 2016. Golovkin may get a hold of Canelo’s world title by virtue of the WBC stripping him for failing to fight Golovkin, but it’s not as if the Kazakhstan fighter is coming out ahead by picking up the WBC title without fighting Canelo.
Once Canelo is out of the picture, Golovkin would be stuck defending the belt against the likes of Jorge Sebastian Heiland, Arif Magomedov, Michel Soro and Ryota Murat.
Those are all low level fights similar to Golovkin’s fight this Saturday night against Dominic Wade. Golovkin could eat up his career fighting these nobodies and fail to make the big money that he obviously wants.
“I know my power. I know my style. Canelo is not Mayweather,” Golovkin said to Fighthype.com about whether he’d come down to 155 to fight Canelo.
GGG may not want to come down to 155, but he needs to swallow his pride and look at this in an adult manner. Golovkin is the older fighter than the 25-year-old Canelo. Golovkin is making a mistake in expecting a young fighter with the ego that Canelo has to give an inch with his desire/need of the catch-weight handicap.
I do not see Canelo giving in ever. With Mayweather gone from the sport, Canelo is appearing to believe he’s the guy that has stepped into his shoes more or less. If Golovkin fails to understand this, then he likely will never get a fight against Canelo.
“Let’s make it clear. We’re no after Canelo. We’re after the WBC belt,” said trainer Abel Sanchez to Fighthype. “That’s what Gennady wants. He wants all the belts. If Canelo is the one who holds it at the time it’s fought, then so be it. If he decides after his fight on the 7th that he wants to run from Golovkin, then that’s okay, We’ll go after the next one. I believe the mandate is the winners have to fight each other, which is our fight and Canelo’ fight. If they don’t, then the one that doesn’t gets stripped. If Gennady doesn’t want to fight Canelo, then he gets stripped of the interim [WBC] title. If Canelo doesn’t want to fight, he gets stripped of his WBC full belt that he holds now. Either way for us, it doesn’t matter. As long as Gennady holds the four belts. He wants to be the one guy after Bernard to hold all four belts,” said Sanchez.
I don’t think Sanchez believes what he’s saying with his talk of Golovkin only interested in winning the WBC belt at all costs. Golovkin and his promoter Tom Loeffler obviously wants the Canelo fight badly. Without a fight against Canelo, Golovkin will get struck fighting all those no name contenders I listed above. Those fights will use up a good portion of what’s left of Golovkin’s career in having to defend the WBC title against them.
