By Edward Chaykovsky

WBO super middleweight champion Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez (34-0, 24KOs) has lashed out at his countryman, Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez (47-1-1, 33KOs), for the way the Mexican superstar handled the situation with WBA/WBC/IBO/IBF middleweight champion Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (35-0, 32KOs).

Earlier in the year, Canelo was ordered by the World Boxing Council to defend his 160-pound title against Golovkin, who was the mandatory challenger.

The sanctioning body allowed each fighter to take an interim-bout with the understanding that they would face each other in the fall.

Following last month's knockout of Amir Khan at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Canelo invited Golovkin to the ring and then accepted his challenge by stating, live on HBO, that "Mexican don't f*** around."

Shortly after that victory, Canelo announced his decision to vacate the WBC title and then the sanctioning body appointed Golovkin as their full champion. The two sides continued to negotiate, but then it was decided to push back the fight until September of 2017.

Last week Canelo announced that he was dropping back to 154-pounds to face Liam Smith for the WBO title. Smith is unknown in the United States and has little experience at the world level, despite being champion.

Ramirez, who in April became the first Mexican to win a world title at 168-pounds, makes his first defense against Dominik Britsch on July 23 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas as part of the HBO pay-per-view undercard to the Terence Crawford-Viktor Postol unification.

Ramirez took personal offense, as a Mexican fighter, at the way the entire Canelo-Golovkin situation played out.

“What Canelo is doing is very disappointing for us as boxing fans,” Ramirez told Yahoo Sports. “A lot of us want to see that fight, him and Golovkin. But when he says something in the ring that 'Yeah, I want to fight him,’ and then turns around and decides he’s not going to fight him, it makes all of us boxers look bad, especially him. By not taking a fight that everybody wants to see and has been asking him to take, and which he said he would take, it’s bad.

“He said it was for the title and that it was for pride, but obviously, he has neither. He doesn’t have the title or the pride. Boxing takes a shot when that happens, saying things and not coming through with them.”