By Miguel Rivera
Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez (47-1-1, 33KOs) has confirmed the possibility of facing WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (23-0, 12KOs), at 160-pounds, on a date in December.
Canelo returns on on September 17th at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas - when he faces Saunders' stablemate Liam Smith for the WBO junior middleweight world title.
Canelo has fought his last five bouts at 155-pounds, and briefly held the WBC middleweight crown before vacating the belt to drop back to 154.
Like Canelo, Saunders has announced that his next world title defense will take place on September 17th. There have been rumors of that defense taking place on Canelo-Smith undercard as a tool to further build a fall fight between Canelo and Saunders.
Canelo wants to slowly build his body to the middleweight limit of 160 with an eye on facing WBC/WBA/IBF/IBO middleweight champion Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (35-0, 32KOs) in September of 2017. Golovkin defends his belts on September 10th against IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook at the O2 Arena in London.
A fight with Saunders would be Canelo's first step at becoming a full-fledged middleweight contender.
"It's what we've thought about, but let's see what happens. First things first [is the fight with Smith]. I always like to take care of the challenges in front of me first and then look at what else lies ahead, but this is what is being planned," Canelo said to ESPN Deportes.
Canelo's May fight with Khan, and the upcoming bout with Smith, are both HBO Pay-Per-View events. The Mexican superstar says the plan is to make his December fight a non-PPV attraction on regular HBO.
"Yes, that's the plan, make a fight on broadcast TV. That is the plan we have, but first we have this [fight with Smith] and then we'll at the others," Canelo said.