By Miguel Rivera
The Hall of Fame legend - 'Hands of Stone' Roberto Duran - is firmly in the corner of the underdog, Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez (48-1-1, 34KOs), and he's confident the Mexican superstar can, and will, dish out the first career defeat to Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (36-0, 33KOs).
There are ongoing negotiations for Canelo and Golovkin to face each other next September during Mexican Independence Day weekend.
Both fighters were in action last month. Canelo dropped back to junior middleweight and knocked out Liam Smith to capture the WBO championship at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Golovkin traveled to the UK and retained his WBC/IBO/WBA/IBF middleweight belts by stopping IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook in five rounds at the O2 Arena in London.
The two camps were negotiating earlier this year. The World Boxing Council applied the pressure on Canelo, who at the time held the WBC 160-pound title, and Golovkin was the mandatory challenger.
Instead of making that mandatory defense, Canelo went in another direction by vacating the belt and moved down to 154. Golovkin, who held the interim-WBC title, was made the full champion by the sanctioning body.
Duran visited Mexico to promote his movie "Hands of Stone", which opens in the country on November 4th, and he took the opportunity to discuss the anticipated fight between Canelo and GGG.
The former world champion believes Canelo is likely postponing the contest to next fall as a way to further build the financial value in the fight.
"Canelo is one of the best fighters that Mexico has. I do not know why he has not fought Golovkin. I would say that he's not afraid [of Golovkin]. I think perhaps he's hoping to make more money [from that fight]," Duran said in an interview with Notimex. "If I were Canelo, I would have fought with Golovkin [already], and I can assure you that Canelo will beat him."