Should he win his upcoming WBC middleweight title fight with Miguel Cotto, then Mexican starlet ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, has dampened the enthusiasm of those seeking a unification fight with Gennady Golovkin by insisting if it’s done, it’s at 155 lbs.
‘Canelo’ and Cotto contest the latter’s WBC trinket at a catch-weight of 155, with the winner mandated to face the big-hitting WBA/IBF champion, who stopped David Lemieux last weekend in some style in New York. However, the latest comments from Canelo regarding triple-G are pushing the potential fight further away given Golovkin [rightly] refuses to contest 160 lb titles at a lesser catch-weight.
“I’m ready to fight anyone but right now I’m fully focused on this [Cotto] fight,” Alvarez said to fighthype.com about Golovkin. “I don’t run from anybody but what I will not do is give away weight advantages.
“If [GGG] wants to fight me he can come down to 155 and I’ll fight him on whatever day he wants,” he said.
Considering victory over Cotto would capture him a middleweight title, it’s reasonable to expect Canelo – essentially a career 154 lb fighter thus far – to make the jump up to fight the other bone fide champions in the division at the proper 160 lb limit. It’s perhaps even more reasonable to expect him to do so than Cotto, who is really a 140/147 lb fighter, yet even the Puerto Rican’s catch-weight antics since claiming the WBC middleweight strap are unreasonable and diva-like to most right thinking fans.
It’s a desperately sad situation for the fans, and given these comments by Canelo as well as Cotto’s flat refusal to fight middleweight fights at the 160 limit, it’s right to be concerned and thinking we are not seeing the winner fight Golovkin any time soon regardless.
Will the WBC get tough? One hopes so but doubts it.
“Right now my body isn’t ready for 160,” Alvarez added. “Maybe one or two more years I’ll be ready but who knows? Golovkin is a great fighter and I’d be delighted to fight him [one day] as I think it makes for a great fight.”
Twitter @Undilutedpoison
