Canelo vs. Golovkin: Will The IBF World Title Be at Stake?

By Steve Kim

While Gennady Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) owns the WBC, WBA, IBO and IBF belts, it's not exactly clear which belts Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez will actually compete for on the night of September 16th.

He's made his disdain for the WBC very clear. Many wonder if he will participate in the morning-of weigh-in the IBF (where the combatants are unable to come in more than ten pounds over the weight limit).

Failure to participate in this procedure means that you can not win the IBF title.

Back on March 18th when Golovkin fought Daniel Jacobs, the challenger for Brooklyn blew off the Saturday morning weigh-in and looked to have a size advantage later that night at the Madison Square Garden in New York.

"I think it was a strategy on their part. I think they saw what (David) Lemieux did that the week before and he saw the tremendous knockout Lemieux had against Curtis Stevens," said Tom Loeffler, the managing director of K2 Promotions, which represents Golovkin.

"So I think it was definitely strategic on their part. You can't fault them for that, they didn't break the rules. They had signed for the fight for all the belts and chose at that point not to fight for the IBF title, forgoing that title in order to get a perceived advantage of not having to weigh-in like Gennady, who as a (IBF) champion had to follow all the IBF rules and there was also the additional disadvantage of the New York commission, who wanted to do an early weigh-in because Top Rank had the Michael Conlan show that night. They wanted to do a 9 o'clock weigh-in."

Both the weigh-in for Golovkin-Jacobs and the Top Rank card both took place at the Theater of Madison Square Garden.

Loeffler continued - "I don't know if Danny will ever get the luxury of weighing-in at 9 o'clock and fighting at 11:30 Saturday night and having the opponent do the second day weigh-in. But again, it was all part of how everything unfolded. But I talked to Eric (Gomez, president of Golden Boy Promotions) about that where there are some safeguards in place where it won't be an unfair advantage for one fighter.

"If 'Canelo' chooses not to fight for the IBF title then Gennady won't unfairly be burdened by that second day weigh-in. So not to get into details on that but 'Canelo' has the choice. He can fight for all the titles, he can fight for one title, he can fight for none of the titles and we'll go from there."

Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com