Malignaggi: Canelo Brought 'Ducking Golovkin' Critics on Himself

By Victor Salazar

Brooklyn, NY - In the boxing world, it seems like everyone has an opinion or is talking about the series of decision made by Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez (47-1-1, 33KOs) - to drop his WBC middleweight title and postpone a potential fight with Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (35-0, 32KOs) until the fall of 2017.

Although there is a verbal agreement in place for the two of them to fight in September of next year, very few expect it to happen. The situation became worse when Canelo announced his decision to return to the junior middleweight division for a fight with WBO 154 pound world champion Liam Smith on September 17th.

Canelo's last five fights have taken place at 155-pounds, which many critics dubbed as 'Canelo weight.'

The thought process of the verbal agreement was to have Canelo move up gradually to 160-pounds, but instead he’s taking a step backwards by returning to a division where he already captured two world titles.

Former two division world champion andShowtime expert analyst,PaulieMalignaggi, offered his opinion on the situation - and he understands why the two are coming together to the dismay of boxing fans worldwide.

“It’s a world title fight, you got to get a world title if you’re Canelo because you just vacated a title so it does the trick and job,” Malignaggi told BoxingScene.com.

“He’s looking for a world title and to be a champion again. Meanwhile, Liam Smith is a world title holder and wants US recognition and there’s no bigger way to get U.S. recognition than fighting and beating Canelo Alvarez.”

As for the criticism being thrown in Canelo’s directions, Malignaggi feels it is warranted and could have been avoided.

“I think everybody says that he’s ducking Golovkin, but they brought it on themselves. Here’s the thing, you can’t win a middleweight title and not hear GGG’s name brought up, nobody can win a middleweight title and not have GGG’s name brought up. They brought themselves these problems. If you’re a middleweight you have to fight top middleweights and that’s where he was at and now he’s in that situation [where everyone thinks he ducked Golovkin]," Malignaggi said.