Fans seem to have been waiting for stars Gennady Golovkin and Saul Canelo Alvarez to fight for the longest time, but in fact the wait hasn’t been over a year yet – it just seems that way. Fans, older fans especially, cannot understand why the two natural rivals do not just get on with it and fight. Despite giving up his WBC middleweight title rather than face GGG next (after he won it from Miguel Cotto) Canelo assures us he “fears no man” and will fight the unbeaten KO artist from Kazakhstan in time.
So the wait goes on. But fear not, Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya assures us the two will clash “sooner than later,” and that this particular super-fight will not be like the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao mega-event (dud of a fight) – which took something like seven years to finally get signed, sealed and delivered.
Speaking with International Business Times, De La Hoya said, once again, that his fighter needs time so as to gain experience as a fully-fledged 160-pounder before taking on GGG.
“People were talking about Pacquiao-Mayweather for six, seven, eight years. People have just begun to talk about Golovkin-Canelo a little under a year ago,” Oscar said. “Canelo is a fighter who fights all comers. There’s not one challenge that he has shied away from. It’s just a matter of timing. Canelo’s not a full-blown middleweight yet, and if you’re gonna fight the very best middleweight out there, you have to do it at the right time and get the experience in that particular weight class. It’s not gonna take six or seven years, but we’re looking to make that fight very soon.”
There was no word from De La Hoya on whether or not the reported verbal agreement between he and Tom Loeffler, that said the two fighters would rumble next September, will still be honoured. But even if that is a realistic date, a year (and a bit) in boxing is a long time and anything can happen. If either of Canelo or GGG were to lose before facing one another, the huge fight would lose so much of its drama; maybe not even happen at all.
Canelo has suggested that his Sept. 17th fight, against defending WBO 154-pound champ Liam Smith (a very live underdog) may be his last at the weight before he invades the middleweight division fulltime. So it seems the question of when Canelo-GGG might happen will be answered by how many fights Alvarez feels he wants at 160 before he decides he is ready to take on the best middleweight on the planet.
Next year? The year after that? Who knows. But boxing will suffer as a sport if this particular super-fight fails to materialise. Despite what De La Hoya says, this one might prove to be a case of, better late than never. Let’s just hope neither fighter is a faded force by the time the two finally get it on.
