By Jeff Aranow: Golden Boy Promotions released video on Tuesday showing Saul Canelo Alvarez still raining for his May 5th rematch with Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin despite the possibility that the rematch could be canceled by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
Golovkin isn’t going to sit around and wait for Canelo. If he receives a longer suspension by the Commission in their investigation of his 2 positive tests for clenbuterol, then GGG will move on and stay busy fighting on May 5 or perhaps in June. It will depend if his promoter Tom Loeffler can find a good enough opponent in time for his May 5th fight.
Terrific day of sparring for @Canelo, who looked very sharp and determined at his training camp in San Diego, CA. @CANELOTEAM pic.twitter.com/KPITbRxyP7
— Golden Boy Boxing (@GoldenBoyBoxing) March 27, 2018
It’s hard to imagine Canelo being able to come into the GGG rematch at 100 percent. Canelo might be physically 100 percent, but he might not be there mentally. Canelo sticking it out and still taking the fight with Golovkin on May 5th could be a disaster for him. If Canelo isn’t at his best, he could get destroyed by Golovkin.
Even when Canelo was in peak form and looking like a sculptured bodybuilder in his fight with Golovkin last September, he still appeared to lose the fight in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans. Canelo had tons of support during and before the fight with Golovkin at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, and yet still got the worst of it and looked to be the loser. If Canelo doesn’t receive a further suspension by the Nevada Commission on April 10, he could get taken apart by Golovkin if his mind isn’t there for the fight. A suspension might actually be a good thing for Canelo.
Canelo is serving out a temporary suspension given by the Nevada Commission last week. The suspension ends on April 10 when the Commission meets again, but Canelo could be given another one. Canelo’s excuse for his 2 positive tests for clenbutero, blaming it on having eaten contaminated meat, is hard for the fans to digest. They don’t see that as a credible excuse. If the Commission clears Canelo based on the contaminated meat excuse he’s giving, it’s probably not going to keep him from being viewed as a drug cheat by a lot of fans.
All that training for Canelo could be for nothing. Canelo will be further explaining his situation to the Nevada Athletic Commission on April 10. This will be the most important hearing for Canelo, because if things don’t work out in his favor, he could receive a 6 month suspension and that mean that his May 5th rematch with Golovkin be canceled. If Canelo receives a six month suspension beginning in April, then he might not be able to fight in September either.
It could keep Canelo out of the ring until October. He’ll have been out of the ring over 1 year if that’s the case. It might not be a good time for Canelo to face Golovkin in a rematch. The boxing public might need to wait until 2019 before they see Canelo and Golovkin face each other in a rematch. That plays in the 27-year-old Canelo’s favor potentially because he’s the younger guy than the soon to be 36-year-ol GGG.
Is this the beginning of the end for Canelo?
Another suspension and the loss of credibility in the boxing word, this could be the beginning of the end for Canelo. Fans abandoning him, saying Canelo’s a cheater, and now suspicious of even his early wins of his career. The echo effect of Canelo’s positive drug test for clenbuterol could be long-lasting. We saw what happened with Mexican star Antonio Margarito his hand wraps were found to have a foreign material inside them. Margarito was temporarily suspended by the California State Athletic Commission while they investigated his case. Margarito ended up receiving a 1-year suspension for the incident. Margarito was never the same after that. Time will tell whether Canelo’s career will ever be the same. Even if he’s cleared by the Commission on April 10, he’s likely going to continue to be ridiculed by fans for his 2 positive tests for clenbuterol.
The Commission is in a positive where they’re going to look bad in the eyes of boxing fans no matter what they decide on April 10 at their hearing. If they let Canelo escape punishment, then they’ll look to some like they did it so they can keep the money flowing into Las Vegas for his huge fights in that city. If Commission gives Canelo a longer suspension, then a lot of fans will be angry at not being able to see him in action. Canelo has a lot of fans that will very upset if he’s suspended and unable to face Golovkin on May 5 or for the rest of the year for that matter. The Commission clearing Canelo might not work in his favor. If Canelo beats Golovkin on May 5th, the fans are not going to give him much credit. Testing positive twice in training camp for the May 5th rematch with GGG puts Canelo in the position where he’ll still be seen as dishonest, and the fans will be suspicious. If Canelo was just another fighter with no fan base, then two positive tests for clenbuterol would have gone under their radar. Being a superstar is a curse for a fighter when they test positive for a PED or if they do anything that attracts negative attention. Canelo is going to have to live with being seen as a dishonest person in the eyes of some boxing fans after this episode. You can only hope that it doesn’t get to Canelo and cause his career to spiral downward out of control.
If there’s anything good that could come out of the huge firestorm of criticism that Canelo is now receiving from boxing fans, it’s the possibility that drug cheats will be less likely to want to use PEDs, because they could receive similar treatment. I’m not saying Canelo cheated by using PEDs purposefully, but I think other fighters are not going to want to be treated like he’d being treated now. The fans don’t know whether Canelo knowingly used PEDs or not, but many of them already see him as guilty, and there’s likely nothing the Nevada Commission will be able to do to change their minds. April 10 is important for Canelo, but it might change anything unless he has receipts for when and where he purchased the contaminated meat in Mexico. If the Commission is unable to receive provable information where Canelo purchased the contaminated meat, they might have to suspend him for 6 months. Given how much time has gone by, it could be unlikely Canelo still has the receipts for his meat purchase. Most people that buy food from a store, they don’t keep the receipts lying around the house for weeks. They toss the receipts.
Initially, a lot of fans assumed Canelo would be cleared by the Nevada Commission and allowed to face Golovkin on May 5th, but not anymore. The temporary suspension that Canelo was given by the Nevada Commission now has a lot of boxing people thinking that he’s going to be suspended again when he meets with the Nevada Commission on April 10. HBO has removed the advertising for his PPV fight with Canelo from their calendar of listings of upcoming fight. That is seen as a bad omen for the Canelo-GGG 2 fight.