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A group of five or six fighters are in the running to be Canelo Alvarez’s next opponent in September and right now Golden Boy Promotions does not have a favorite.
The only thing they assure is that now there are no conditions to think the Mexican superstar will face Gennadiy Golovkin in September or at all in 2020.
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Eric Gómez, president of Golden Boy, said that his company will speak with Canelo in a few weeks to discuss his return, the protocol that will govern him, whether it will be with or without an audience and if there is the possibility of fighting twice this year – since it could also open up the possibility of doing one more fight in December.
“There are five or six opponents, the names that always come out, and we are not ruling anyone out, but there is not one that sounds better than the other. There are several that have been mentioned, but Saúl is going to decide who he wants to fight with,” Gomez told ESPN Deportes.
“We are looking at opponents, but there are no offers. We saw that some notes came out, but they are not true, there is no one, there are no offers, they are the same opponents, the best in the world, some of them champions… the difference is that the borders are not open and people cannot travel freely as they would before, and that is another aspect that we have to look at.”
Names like Caleb Plant, Jaime Munguía, Billy Joe Saunders, David Benavidez, David Lemieux, Sergey Derevyanchenko and Anthony Dirrell are for now possibilities.
The only sure thing is that in September it won’t be GGG.
Because the fight is likely not going to have an audience, due to the coronavirus pandemic, it’s impossible to do that fight behind closed doors.
“Not with Golovkin,” said Gomez emphatically. “Economically, it is not convenient to do it without an audience. The two fights [between Canelo and GGG] produced very large gates in Las Vegas and it would not be convenient to do that fight without an audience, but we will see when it can be done with the public. Both of them are open to fight, but it may not be until 2021.”
Regarding the possibility of fighting without an audience, he said that they have not yet formally spoken with Canelo about that possibility, but they will.
“He is open to the idea, it is not yet confirmed, he has not confirmed that, we are just talking about the idea of fighting without an audience, we will see, he is open to it, but he wants to see all the details. In the next few weeks we will meet to discuss all the details, so he feels safe, that it’s going to be a safe place, he wants to know about the protocols, we will see in the coming weeks,” Gomez said.