All anyone can talk about these days in the boxing world is Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Gennady “Triple G” Golovkin. Alvarez, upon winning the WBC middleweight title from Miguel Cotto last month at a catch-weight of 155lbs, was supposed to defend the title against Golovkin, who was the long overdue mandatory. Although, Golovkin agreed to step aside money to allow Cotto-Canelo.
Canelo was initially given 15 days after the Cotto win to begin negotiations with Golovkin, but that was extended by the WBC.
The extension resulted in a Sunday meeting between Eric Gomez of Golden Boy Promotions (Canelo’s promoter), Tom Loeffler of K2 (Golovkin’s promoter) and WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman to determine a resolution. The decision was made that each fighter would be allowed one interim bout before a Canelo-Golovkin clash in September.
Now, the attention shifts to determining what opponents will share the ring with each fighter for their next outing.
Golovkin is likely to make his next performance in April, possibly late March, on HBO. There have been no indications on who he might face, but, with a bit of luck, Golovkin could face off against the winner of Andy Lee and Billy Joe Saunders, which happens to be a fight involving the only other middleweight title not held by either Canelo or Golovkin. Lee admitted to ESPN that he is genuinely hoping to secure a unification fight with Golovkin should he get past Saunders.
As for Canelo, he is penciled in for Cinco de Mayo weekend on HBO, which falls on May 7th next year. There are no real prospects being mentioned to face off with Canelo at this point, but that will likely change in the coming weeks. I’m guessing that the name will surface in between some longshots and desperate pleas, but we should expect the trend to continue where stars finalize their opponents late – a tendency we’ve seen from fighters like Floyd Mayweather Jr. and, most recently, Manny Pacquiao, who was supposed to announce his opponent this past Friday but instead pushed it back for a second time.
However, in an interview with K.O. Artist Sports, Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya mentioned the first potential name (a longshot) for a Canelo opponent.
Giving De La Hoya full credit for recognizing the best fighters in boxing today, he mentioned Amir Khan as an opponent he’d like to see face Canelo, although he did say that it was the kind of matchup that could be made now or down the road because it is such a significant matchup.
“You know what fight I wouldn’t mind putting together and watching because I think it would be a fun fight is — down the road, now or whenever — Amir Khan versus Canelo,” De La Hoya said with an understandably excited tone in his voice. I wouldn’t mind seeing that. I think Amir Khan is a fighter who can move up to 154 [pounds], a fighter that can fight at 47 (welterweight).”
It would be a tremendous land for Canelo and Golden Boy. In Khan, they get a fighter that will be undersized and coming up from welterweight, a fighter that they can dictate the terms against after Khan has been unable to secure a super fight with any of the other cash cows, and a fighter with popularity. Actually, Khan would offer up a vast popularity compared to the other potential opponents.
Even if Golden Boy would be able to miraculously break through the De La Hoya/Haymon riff and open up the opponent pool to the PBC fighters at 154lbs and 160lbs, Khan still possesses a superior commercial appeal to anyone else, including his peers at 147lbs.
Also, De La Hoya would be able to negotiate the fight without too much interference from Haymon, at least by comparisons to his other fighters, because it is no secret that Khan has been upset at Haymon’s inability to secure him a fight with Mayweather Jr.
However, this feels all too familiar. Not to jump too far ahead because obviously there are no real negotiations happening at this point between the Mexican superstar and the Bolton, Lancashire-born fighter, but Khan shouldn’t even entertaining the idea. He should pretend as though his name was never mentioned at all.
As previously mentioned, Khan missed out on a fight with Mayweather, but the real issue was that he wasted so much of his career waiting for the “big fight” and he has dug himself into a real hole. Of course, nobody can blame Khan for his initial strategy of avoiding tough fights in an effort not to risk a loss, thus making a fight with Floyd unobtainable.
But Khan spent more time than he should’ve on the sidelines and he allowed fighters like Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter to surpass him in the eyes of fans. As it stands, the most desired fights in the welterweight division do not currently involve Khan, and he has no one to blame but himself.
To make matters worse, Khan has spent his time, a time when Mayweather is actively retired, waiting out Manny Pacquiao as he decides who his next and potentially final opponent will be. News broke a few months ago that Bob Arum was attempting to line up a fight with Khan for Pacquiao. At that point, Khan became a real option, however, he did not remain the only option as both Terrence Crawford and Timothy Bradley have made real cases for landing a fight with Pacquiao.
As it stands, rumors persist that Pacquiao will choose Bradley, leaving Khan out in the dark once again.
With both Mayweather and Pacquiao alluding Khan, all he would need is yet another cash cow in Canelo to eventually snub him as well. Who’s next? Maybe he can almost, but never actually, come close to landing fights with Miguel Cotto? How about Juan Manuel Marquez? How many near-fights can Khan stand to lose out on, all the while he remains in a welterweight limbo as fighters like Errol Spence and Sammy Vasquez make their own strides.
Khan needs to refocus his attention on building his own career, and he needs to do it the hard way based on the fact that he spent so much time on the sideline. It is much easier to shoot up the superstar rankings in one fight by capitalizing off of a major fight against a superstar opponent. But Khan can become a superstar by running the gantlet and beating the likes of Thurman, Porter, and Spence—who would presumably become a big enough fight by the time Khan gets through with Thurman and Porter.
Khan can beat anyone in the division, but as each day passes Khan risks his sharpness in fights against the division’s elite.
De La Hoya knows this fight favors Canelo much more, although the fans would surely benefit and he knows that, too.
“See, Amir Khan is a fighter who is very versatile. He’s a fan’s favorite fighter. Think about his fights. He’s always in exciting fights. I think an Amir Khan versus Canelo would be very interesting.”
When discussing the obvious benefits of the potential financial success of the fight, De La Hoya offered up just one word, “Huge!”
