Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya insists that newly-crowned WBC middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez won’t duck Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, and that a major fight between the two will happen. He also took it a step further and said that Alvarez will prevent a major problem for Golovkin with his style. That’s usually the other way around when it comes to GGG.
“Canelo is strong, fast, he’s younger than Gennady, and Canelo is getting better in every fight,” De La Hoya told Boxing Scene. “We feel like this is Hearns vs. Duran. Canelo has the style and technique to disappoint a lot of Golovkin fans when they face each other, and he will.”
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De La Hoya also didn’t mention trying to get them in the ring immediately. He mentioned Alavarez “maturing into his maximum strength,” which is code for “he needs to become an actual middleweight.” Alvarez defeated Miguel Cotto for the WBC belt, and while Cotto is a lock for the Boxing Hall of Fame, the fight was contested at a 155-pound catch weight. Cotto won the belt at a 159-pound catch weight, and defended it vs. Daniel Geale at 157 pounds. So despite his status as the lineal champion of the division, Alvarez has never taken on a natural middleweight at 160 pounds.
When Floyd Mayweather Jr. retired, and Alvarez toppled Cotto, he became boxing’s biggest attraction, so it’s possible he could impose a catch weight on Golovkin, although Golovkin has publicly stated he’s against defending the belt below 160 pounds.
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“I'm champion of 160, middleweight is my comfortable weight,” Golovkin told Boxing Scene in October. “For what [reason would I do a catch-weight]? For business or for what? I'm a boxer. I'm the champion of the middleweight division.”
The economics of an Alvarez super fight may change his mind, but Golovkin is also a major attraction in his own right. He holds four belts (one being the WBC interim title), has boxing’s longest knockout streak, and earned $2 million against David Lemieux.
Instead of a catch weight, Alvarez may fight twice at middleweight in stay-busy fights until he feels full-fledged at 160 pounds, and then take Golovkin on in the spring of 2017.
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