By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya says that if Gennady Golovkin goes ahead and fights Billy Joe Saunders for his WBO middleweight title in June, it would be disrespectful to them and his fighter Saul Canelo Alvarez. De La Hoya wants Golovkin to sit idle waiting for the fight in September against Canelo, because he thinks it will be too risky and could get in the way of the Canelo fight.
If an injury occurs, it could derail the Golovkin-Canelo fight. Golovkin sitting and waiting for a fight that may never happen against Canelo is probably not something that he and his promoter Tom Loeffler will want to do. They already had Canelo skip out on a fight with him in 2016, when he vacated his WBC middleweight title rather than defend it against him.
Before that, Canelo gave the impression that he was going to fight Golovkin when he told him to climb inside the ring and fight him following his win over Amir Khan. It looked at the time that Canelo was going to fight Golovkin in his next fight. Instead, Canelo fought little known WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith last September.
“A June Golovkin fight would be a disrespect to everybody,” De La Hoya said to espn.com. “How serious do they want to make this fight happen? He could get cut, he could get dropped, he could get beat. You can hurt a hand. It would be too close to September and would not give us the proper time to promote a fight of this magnitude. The June fight would derail everything,” said De La Hoya.
If Golovkin and Loeffler trusted Canelo and Golden Boy Promotions, they might be inclined to forget about the fight against WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders, but they saw what happened when they waited for a fight against Golden Boy’s flagship fighter. It could be a mistake if Golovkin puts his trust in Canelo, because he could have nothing to show for it if the fight fails to take place.
Canelo taking a dangerous fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on May 6 could be construed as being disrespectful, because the fight is only 1 month sooner than Golovkin’s June 10 fight against Billy Joe Saunders, and there’s a lot more risk involved in that fight for Canelo. Saunders can’t punch, and he mostly just moves around the ring trying to avoid getting hit. He’s not a slugger at all.
Chavez Jr. is a big puncher than likes to go to war with his opponents from the word go. If Canelo suffers a bad cut or a broken bone in the Chavez Jr. fight, he’s not likely to be healed up in 4 months to face Golovkin in September. It seems only fair that if Canelo is going to fight in May against Chavez Jr., then Golovkin should be able to fight in June.
“How can we take a risk on him getting cut or hurt? We have sponsors who want to begin to promote the day after the Chavez fight,” said De La Hoya.
De La Hoya is already taking a big risk in letting Canelo fight Chavez Jr. in May. If De La Hoya is worried about the sponsors, then he shouldn’t have made the fight with Chavez Jr. just 4 months away from the Golovkin fight. That’s disrespectful if you ask me and very, very risky. The chances are high that Canelo will come into the Golovkin fight still licking his wounds from the Chavez Jr. fight if he gets past him. If Canelo loses to Chavez Jr., which is a very real possibility, then De La Hoya will obviously turn around and reschedule a rematch between them. Golovkin would be told to get in line and wait until 2018.