By Corey Erdman 

Here's the truth: Fans on Saturday night were treated to a live showing of Canelo Alvarez's first sparring session in preparation for Gennady Golovkin.

As Alvarez battered Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. around the ring for 12 rounds, HBO commentators feigned disappointment in the lack of actual competition in the bout. Max Kellerman specifically bashed Chavez, a man who had just absorbed 145 power punches, of conning the fans. Minutes later, he participated in a staged entrance and confetti toss for Golovkin to confront Canelo and announce a September clash, proving that whatever con Chavez may or may not have ran, the network was at least an accomplice, and at worst the perpetrator.

But in that moment, with Canelo and GGG face to face with a concrete date for their bout scrolling across the jumbo tron, everyone involved could finally stop lying.

No longer did anyone have to sell Chavez as a potential roadblock. Golden Boy Promotions and K2 Promotions didn't have to find reasons why the fight hadn't been made and suggest to the fans that it was best this way.

"The fight is done. I've never feared anyone, since I was 16, fighting as a professional. When I was born, fear was gone. I never got my share of fear. I'm very happy, and the rivalry is going to show my skills even more. I've had difficult fights, and that will no doubt be a tough fight. But, I always say, Canelo Alvarez is the best because I fight the best," said Alvarez.

A fight as good as Canelo vs. GGG doesn't require any embellishment at all. Sure, it will require marketing as all events do, but this one sells itself. The two best middleweights in the world. Two of the best fighters on the planet. The most popular fighter in the world today against the one held in the highest regard.

Canelo-Chavez required smoke and mirrors. It needed an hour's worth of shoulder programming, carefully edited to show only a youthful Chavez Jr. blasting out hapless opponents and his final minute of success against Sergio Martinez. It required framing the fight as a national event in Mexico first and fight second.

Perhaps you could have tricked someone with images of Chavez running in the mountains spliced with his ill-fated dramatic comeback, but by 1:00 of the first round, reality had set in for even the most naive of viewers.

That's how this sport works. Almost every process in boxing is a gradual revelation of the truth—either purposely or unintentionally. In W.C. Heinz's “The Professional,” the narrator perfectly describes the building of a fighter, but it just as easily could have been rejigged to describe a fight promotion.

Heinz wrote: “The greatest sculptor in the world, working in marble, cannot add a thing. If it is not there, it is not there. No man makes it, and so no man is truly creative, but by subtraction from the whole he reveals it. That is the nearest that man can come to creation, and that is why the great are afraid. Only they can see all of it, and they are afraid that, in the process of subtraction, they will not reveal all of it, and what is hidden will remain hidden forever. They are even more afraid that, in the process, they will cut too far and destroy that much of it forever. It is that way in the making of all things, including the making of a fighter.”

Everyone in the fight game is nervous about their “final reveal.” The mystique surrounding both Canelo and GGG will disappear on that night. For all of their accomplishments to this point in their careers, everyone's ultimate opinion of them is based on how they think they would perform against one another, just as it was for Mayweather and Pacquiao.

"I feel very excited; in September, it will be a different style-a big drama show," said Golovkin. "I'm ready. Tonight, first congrats to Canelo and his team. Right now, I think everyone is excited for September. Canelo looked very good tonight, and 100 percent he is the biggest challenge of my career."

Once the fight happens, their reputations won't have anything to do with our imaginations anymore.
Short of a mind-blowing back and forth draw, one man will leave with his public perception damaged.

Fighters, by nature, fear no man, and will turn down no challenge. But if they're afraid of anything, it's the thought of losing the air of invincibility. Building a fighter up requires a full-time commitment to bold declarations. “This kid right here will be the undisputed champion of the world!” “I can beat anybody in my division!”

What happens if those things are proven to be untrue? It's the scariest of predicaments for any manager or promoter, let alone the fighter.

The best fighters in the world are to be admired for their willingness to face the absolute truth. Those who never got their shot against the best in the world or got licked before they could make it up that ladder can still invent scenarios in which they could have done more. But when you step on the biggest platform against the very best, you don't get to provide the answers to the audience anymore.

Canelo-Golovkin is perhaps the best fight that can be made today, and it's finally going to happen.

And that's no lie.