By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya and his fighter Saul “Canelo Alvarez weren’t impressed with what he saw of IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) in his fight against welterweight Kell Brook (36-1, 25 KOs) last Saturday night at the O2 Arena in London, England.
Despite Golovkin getting the win by a 5th round knockout, De La Hoya said that Golovkin looked “vulnerable” against Brook in his first fight against a guy that could move around the ring on him. De La Hoya further said that when Canelo gets inside the ring with Golovkin, it won’t be a pretty sight. De La Hoya said that Canelo still isn’t ready to fight Golovkin.
He’s waiting for Canelo to grow into 160lbs. De La Hoya believes that Canelo could be moving up to middleweight by the end of this year in his next fight on December 10 on regular HBO. The potential opponents for Canelo’s next fight are from the following fighters: David Lemieux, Curtis Stevens, Billy Joe Saunders, and the winner of the Willie Monroe Jr. vs. Gabriel Rosado fight.
“Golovkin looked vulnerable against the first real fighter who can move. We see things in Golovkin that are going to be exposed when they fight and it’s not going to be pretty,” De La Hoya said to the latimes.com. “That’ll happen when Canelo fills into his body at 160 [pounds] and that’s going to be this year, probably.”
It’s interesting that De La Hoya isn’t pointing out how Canelo struggled badly in his last fight against welterweight Amir Khan last May. Many boxing fans had Canelo losing the first four rounds against Khan before coming on to get a knockout in the 6th. If Canelo had fought Brook last Saturday, I think he would have lost every round and been forced to try and bail himself out with a knockout.
I think Canelo would have had more problems against Brook than Golovkin did if he was matched against him last Saturday night. Canelo doesn’t cut off the ring well at all, and Brook would have had a field day moving around, tying up Canelo and just looking frustrate rather than win the fight. It would have been a hard fight for Canelo.
De La Hoya has talked recently of matching Canelo against Golovkin in 2017. We’ll find out soon enough whether he was serious about that. I imagine if Canelo struggles on Saturday night against Liam Smith, we’re not going to see a Canelo-Golovkin fight in 2017.
If Canelo loses to Smith, then there won’t be any chance of a Canelo vs. Golovkin fight next years, believe me. That fight will get pushed into the future while Golden Boy and Canelo work on fixing the mistakes he made in the Smith fight. They’ll need to fight Smith again to avenge the loss, and that’ll take time. If Canelo loses a second fight to Smith, then it’ll be game over. Canelo will be just another flawed fighter with a build in fan base but not much in the way of talent.
Golden Boy has done a good job of match-making with Canelo during his career. He’s been fighting a lot of guys that were smaller than him. He even fought a welterweight in Matthew Hatton to win the WBC junior middleweight title in 2011. Canelo hasn’t been fighting high quality guys his size. He’s been fighting guys like Miguel Cotto, Alfredo Angulo, Amir Khan, James Kirkland and now he’s fighting Liam Smith instead of the Charlo brothers or Erislandy Lara.
De La Hoya has got to be kidding. Canelo doesn’t move well around the ring. He’s like a slow tank. Canelo couldn’t cut off the ring against Erislandy Lara and Floyd Mayweather Jr. in his fights against them in the past. Canelo doesn’t even try to elude his opponents. He’s always been the guy with the superior power and size in his fights, so he hasn’t had to use his legs to get away from someone.
When Canelo fought Austin Trout several years ago, he struggled with the pressure that was put on him and he was forced to retreat to the ropes for the entire second half of the fight. There was no movement from Canelo. It was just him perched against the ropes, looking tired and flicking jabs into the air to keep Trout from attacking him. It seems like De La Hoya doesn’t even know his own fighter Canelo. If he did, he would realize that he doesn’t move well.
There isn’t anyone in the middleweight division that can move well enough to give Golovkin problems. At 154, Lara is the best move in the division, but he doesn’t have the offensive skills to beat Golovkin, and he hates getting attacked to the body the way that he would if he took on Triple G. Canelo does not have the mobility to get away from Golovkin, and if he retreats to the ropes like I think he will, he’ll taken apart.
“At 160, Canelo will fight the best. I’m living up to what I said, and this is turning out to be an amazing event. Canelo brings exciting fights, and when Canelo and Golovkin happens, I can’t imagine it not filling up this kind of stadium,” said De La Hoya.
De La Hoya says that Canelo will fight the best at 160, but what are we to believe. Look at Canelo at 154. He’s fighting Liam Smith instead of the Charlo brothers, Demetrius Andrade, Julian Williams and giving a rematch to Erislandy Lara, who he beat by a HIGHLY controversial decision in 2014. If Canelo is going to be matched in the same way at 160 that he was at 154, then I don’t expect to see him fighting Golovkin until later on down the line.
I can’t see Canelo fighting Daniel Jacobs. I honestly don’t think Canelo wants to move up to middleweight. Why should he? When Canelo moves up in weight to the 160lb division, it’ll look bad if he continues to fight welterweights. At least if he stays at 154, he can fight welterweights without taking heat. But if he moves up to 160 and continues to fight welterweights, the boxing world will jump all over his case and see him as a cherry picker. That’s it’s better for Canelo to stay at 154 for as long as possible so that he can comb the welterweight division for opponents every now and then.