By Dan Ambrose: Canelo Alvarez still intends on fighting this September, but it won’t be against Gennadiy Golovkin. The IBF middleweight champion Golovkin already has plans to defend his belt against Kamil Szeremeta.
Canelo may end up fighting an unknown guy if he can’t sign a quality fighter due to their high purse requests.
Saunders still an option for Canelo
It’s not sure whether boxing will be back by September or the remainder of 2020, so it still up in the air for now. Canelo (53-1-2, 36 KOs) was planning on facing WBO super middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders in May or June, and then Golovkin in September. However, the crisis has changed those plans.
On top of that, Saunders is under suspension by the British Boxing Board of Control. Whether Canelo and his promoters at Golden Boy still want to go through with the Saunders (29-0, 14 KOs) is unknown.
Before Saunders got into hot water with a disturbing video he posted on social media, there was scant interest from boxing fans in the Canelo-Saunders fight. If Canelo doesn’t care about the lack of interest from fans in North America in the Saunders match, he can reschedule the battle.
Golovkin’s trainer Johnathon Banks says he wants not only a title defense against Szeremeta, but also one more fight before facing Canelo. Under the best of circumstances, we could see Canelo and Golovkin battle in late 2021.
If not then, we could see them fight in 2022. So that you know, Golovkin will be 40-years-old in early 2020. Just how much interest there will be in a fight between Canelo and GGG at that point is anyone’s guess.
Canelo wants to fight in September
“In my mind, I’m fighting in September,” Alvarez told Mexican TV program Box Azteca. “Hopefully, all of this will pass, and that date will still be possible. Right now, everything is on standby. I don’t really know what’s next,” Alvarez said. “Everything is shut down. We had really big plans.”
At this point, all Canelo can hope for is boxing returning by late summer. If the pandemic continues into the winner, then it could make it tough for Canelo to fight at all this year. The projections aren’t promising for the end of the current situation.
Canelo isn’t happy with the money that some of his potential opponents were asking for. The fighters saw how much money the last two guys Canelo fought made in Sergey Kovalev and Daniel Jacobs, and they want to be paid well too.
Canelo hasn’t been looking at facing fighters that U.S fans are familiar with. His interest has been in British fighters Saunders and Callum Smith. It’s unknown whether DAZN gave Canelo the green light to look for British opponents in a move to increase subscriptions in that country or if this was his own idea.
If DAZN didn’t initiate this, then Canelo should refocus on picking the best-known fighters that will help bring back the lost subscribers. Sadly, Saunders and Callum won’t do the job. Those are not household names in the U.S. So if this a planned move for Canelo to pick guys that he’s confident he can beat, then he needs to go in a different direction.
If Canelo wanted to help bring back subscribers to DAZN, he could face one of these fighters when the sport resumes:
- Artur Beterbiev
- Dmitry Bivol
- David Benavidez
- Caleb Plant
- Sergiy Derevyanchenko
- Jermall Charlo
There would be a lot of fan interest in Canelo fighting some of those guys rather than him padding his record facing Saunders, who is a gimme level opponent.
Golovkin to fight twice before facing Canelo
“They told me, and I said ‘no,’” said Banks to IFL TV in talking about Team Canelo wanting to make the third fight with Golovkin in 2020. “The plan was to do this fight (against Kamil Szeremeta), then another and then Canelo.
“When we said we were ready to fight, he said he didn’t want the fight, he disappeared, he did what he wanted, and he rejected the fight. Now he says he wants the fight and GGG is like ‘no,’ he already had something planned ‘”, Banks said.
Technically, you can’t say that Szeremeta (21-0, 5 KOs) is a tune-up fight for Golovkin because he’s his IBF mandatory challenger. However, given that Szeremeta has never fought any notable opposition during his career, it’s difficult to say he’s not a tune-up.
It’s more bad news for DAZN that Golovkin is going to take two more fights before he faces Canelo because they need to bring back the subscribers. Szeremeta isn’t going to help with that goal, and neither is Canelo fighting Saunders.
When DAZN signed Canelo and Golovkin, they should have insisted on them being the ones that have first say in who they both fight. Giving them the freedom to pick their own opponents doesn’t help the company.