Saunders wants Golovkin or Canelo next

By Boxing News - 10/03/2016 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (23-0, 12 KOs) says he wants to fight either middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin or Saul Canelo Alvarez next after he gets past his maiden title defense against Artur Akavov (16-1, 7 KOs) on October 22 at the Motorpoint Arena in Cardiff, Wales.

Saunders would like to fight Golovkin in December, and he’s willing to travel to the U.S to make the fight happen. Saunders believes the World Boxing Association would allow Golovkin to bypass his WBA ordered fight against WBA ‘regular’ middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs in order to fight a unification match.

Saunders feels pretty confident Golovkin will be permitted to do that. I’m not sure if that’s the case.

Saunders says he saw weakness in Golovkin’s game in his fight against welterweight Kell Brook last month on September 10. Saunders isn’t saying what that weakness was, but he plans on taking advantage of it when he gets Golovkin inside the ring. Saunders thinks that Brook gave Golovkin a lot of problems for five rounds by believing in himself. He thinks he can give Golovkin even more problems by being head strong.
Saunders said this during Monday’s press conference:

“I don’t think it does his name any justice fighting a welterweight. Kell Brook is a good fighter. He’s a world class fighter, but he’s not a middleweight. I saw stuff in that fight that I can capitalize on. I think that Golovkin thinks he’s invincible. Kell Brook put up a hell of a fight for five rounds with his belief. You get someone mentally head strong, because I know I would taking a title fight. I’d cause him a lot of problems. I want the fight in December. I’d love for him to come back over. I’d want it in December, but he’s got Jacobs. There’s even Canelo. We’d love to go to America. If Canelo wants it, I wouldn’t mind going there. It’s definitely one of the two in the New Year. I’d like to fight one of them. My goal is Golovkin, hopefully in February or March. Am I good enough for Golovkin? Can I beat Golovkin? I’m 27 now. I’m in my prime. He’s 34. If I can’t beat Golovkin now, then I’m never going to beat him. I want to be the first man to dethrone him. I know I can box. There’s nobody that can run away from me. I believe I have one of the best brains in the middleweight division. It’s impossible to get a bigger champion than Golovkin. Let’s see if I can rise to the occasion. Everything has to be perfect, but I believe I can beat him. I see many weaknesses in him. At the end of the day, he’s only just a man. He’s not invincible. There’s reasons why he didn’t box Andre Ward. There’s reasons why he didn’t move up to super middleweight and box certain other fighters. I believe that Ward would have definitely exposed his weaknesses, and maybe one or two others at that weight. He wants all the belts. I’ve got one of them. We can fight in December. I’m ready. A mandatory, I know that Jacobs is. I don’t think that comes close to a unification. He can do that if he wants to, and I’m willing to go to America and fight him there.”

Saunders will be out of his class against Golovkin even in 10 years from now. It takes more than being on your prime to beat Golovkin. You also need to have the basic ingredient of talent for you to have a chance of beating him. I don’t see Saunders as having enough ability to beat a fighter like Triple G. One big hint that you can take with you in figuring out whether Saunders can hang with Golovkin is the problems that Saunders had in beating Andy Lee and Chris Eubank Jr. Those were really hard fights for Saunders in which he barely won the fights. If Saunders can’t beat fighters like then in a conclusive manner, then he’ll never beat a guy like Golovkin.

I doubt that Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler is going to drop interest in putting together a fight between Golovkin and Jacobs just because Saunders is name dropping his name. It might be a big mistake of Golovkin and Loeffler abandoned the negotiations with Jacobs, because they could wind up without an opponent if they discover that Saunders isn’t truly interested in fighting him. If that happens, Golovkin will be really desperate to find someone for his fight in December.

“Billy Joe Saunders, who is on the cusp, provided he comes through his fight on the 22nd, being involved in a historic fight involving one of the great fighters in modern day boxing, be it Golovkin or Canelo,” said Saunders’ promoter Frank Warren. “What would make more sense to me would be to fight Canelo, beat Canelo and then fight Golovkin. That’s how I would want it in an ideal world. We don’t live in an ideal world. We live in a boxing world.”
It’s likely that Saunders will wind up fighting Canelo in early 2017 rather than fighting Golovkin.