By Dan Ambrose: If Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (50-2-1, 32 KOs) defeats Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs) on May 6, Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) would be more than willing to move up to super middleweight to fight him at the full weight of 168 pounds for the division, says his promoter Tom Loeffler. He says he was trying to make a fight between Gennady and Chavez Jr. at 168 several years ago, but the fight failed to take place.
A win for Chavez Jr. over Canelo would open the door for a big money fight between Golovkin and him. The Chavez Jr. vs. Golovkin fight would obviously need to wait until after the Chavez Jr-Canelo obligatory rematch, as Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy Promotions won’t allow Chavez Jr. to get away without doing an immediate big money rematch between the two Mexican stars.
“Chavez Jr. vs. Gennady at 168 is a tremendous fight,” said Loeffler to Villianfy. “If Chavez Jr. can beat Canelo, all of a sudden he’s back on the top of boxing. Chavez Jr. is a lot bigger than Canelo, and a lot bigger than Gennady. When we tried to make a fight against Chavez Jr. 2 or 3 years ago, it was going to be at 168 pounds. That would be a great fight,” said Loeffler.
Golovkin, 34, is about to move up to super middleweight anyway after June or September of this year. Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez already said that June could be the last fight for him at 160 if he doesn’t get the Canelo fight in September. Golovkin wants to go after all the titles at 168. He can’t accomplish much if Canelo is going to price himself out of the fight with him.
A loss for Canelo on May 6 in his fight against Chavez Jr. might be the best thing for him and for the sport of boxing, because it would knock the legs out from under Golden Boy Promotions saying he’s the A-side and using their muscle from his popularity to create a stalemate in the Golovkin fight negotiations. Maybe if Canelo loses to Chavez Jr., it would help create an atmosphere where the Golovkin fight can take place. Of course, there’s also a possibility that we could see Golden Boy going back to another 3-year period of safe match-making for Canelo like we’ve seen from them since his controversial 12 round split decision win over Erislandy Lara in 2014.
That fight was viewed as a loss for Canelo by a lot of fans of the boxing world. Canelo had soft match-making by Golden Boy since the Lara fight with him being put in with James Kirkland, Amir Khan, Liam Smith and 36-year-old Miguel Cotto. It would be a shame if Golden Boy puts Canelo through another 3-year period of weak opponents if he loses to Chavez Jr. The boxing fans want to see Canelo fight the best and currently that’s Golovkin. De La Hoya said that Canelo is going to “conquer” and “dominate” the middleweight division. If that’s the case, then he needs to be able to negotiate fights with Golovkin and the other top fighters rather than cherry picking guys like Chavez Jr. from the super middleweight division.