Arum: I Would Have Never Let Canelo Do What He Did With GGG

By Radio Rahim

Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum is not surprised with the harsh criticisms that have recently slammed down on Mexican superstar Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez (47-1-1, 33KOs).

There are many fans who are upset with the way Canelo handled his mandatory title defense against IBO/WBC/WBA/IBF middleweight champion Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (35-0, 32KOs). The World Boxing Counil had ordered Canelo to defend his title against Golovkin in the fall.

Following his vicious knockout victory over Amir Khan on May 7th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Canelo made Golovkin enter the ring - and then Canelo accepted a fight with GGG at 160-pounds and made several verbal boasts - including his now famous quote of how 'Mexicans don't f*** around.'.

It wasn't long before Canelo vacated his world title, with the sanctioning body naming Golovkin as their new titleholder at 160-pounds.

Now Canelo-Golovkin, although still on the table, seems unlikely to happen in the fall, and many believe unlikely to happen at the full middleweight limit of 160. Canelo's last five fights took place at a catch-weight of 155.

Arum, if he was promoting Canelo instead of Golden Boy Promotions, would have handled the situation in a completely different manner.

"First of all, I would have never let Canelo do what he did. And what he did was for no reason after his fight, maybe he got carried away, was to have Triple G come in the ring and to make all of these statements that he would do it at 160," Arum told BoxingScene.com.

"It would have been better if he had said, for example, if I was handling it - 'look Triple G is a great fighter, I'm not used to fighting at 160 because even with Cotto he's not a 160-pound fighter. So I want to try out one or two fights in the 160 pound division. Let me fight [David] Lemieux, let me fight somebody else in the middleweight division. And if I feel like I can handle the added weight, then why not fight Triple G next.'

"That puts it off, it's a reasonable excuse. Everyone would say 'hey the guy is making sense.' Instead of what he did, which was accept the challenge. It's almost like [Donald] Trump - 'hey I want to debate Bernie Sanders' but then when it becomes possible, he pulls back and he becomes 'Donald Ducks.' You leave yourself open for that criticism [by doing what Canelo did]."