By Keith Idec
LAS VEGAS – In hindsight, Abel Sanchez is glad Gennady Golovkin wasn’t allowed to squeeze in a fight against Billy Joe Saunders before facing Canelo Alvarez.
The ambitious game plan Golovkin’s handlers originally designed included a middleweight championship unification bout with Saunders on June 10 in Golovkin’s native Kazakhstan. Negotiations between Tom Loeffler, the managing director for K2 Promotions, and Frank Warren, who promotes Saunders, advanced to the point where Warren and Saunders thought the deal was basically done.
Oscar De La Hoya was adamant, however, about Golovkin not fighting Saunders on June 10 before finalizing a deal for his promotional company’s franchise fighter, Alvarez, to challenge Golovkin on Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez were concerned that if Golovkin got cut or otherwise injured, or was upset by Saunders, that it would ruin this long-anticipated, pay-per-view showdown.
Golovkin’s difficult 12-round, unanimous-decision victory Daniel Jacobs on March 18 also made facing Saunders less than three months later unrealistic from a physical standpoint for a 35-year-old fighter who boxed just twice in 2016. Squeezing Saunders into Golovkin’s schedule, which already required a lot of his time to properly promote this event, would’ve left the undefeated champion little time to recuperate over a six-month period.
“The reason I’m glad is because we’ve had him on a real busy schedule and sometimes a fighter needs that rest,” Sanchez told BoxingScene.com. “So the fact that we didn’t do that [Saunders fight] right away was good. We would’ve gone into training camp two weeks after the Jacobs fight.
“So we would’ve gone through another hard training camp, and then September’s only three months away, and then there’s another hard training camp. So in a way, yes, I’m happy for Golovkin. He’s also 35 years old. He’s not a spring chicken, so all that combined is just gonna make for both guys being completely ready on the 16th.”
England’s Saunders (24-0, 12 KOs) also will defend his WBO middleweight title Saturday in London. A few hours before Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) and Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs) enter the ring halfway around the world, Saunders is set to meet American Willie Monroe Jr. (21-2, 6 KOs) in a 12-round fight at Copper Box Arena (Box Nation; 7 p.m. BST).
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.