By Edward Chaykovsky
Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya, who promotes Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez (47-1-1, 33KOs), believes his fighter will expose the flaws of WBA/IBO/IBF/WBC middleweight champion Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (35-0, 32KOs).
De La Hoya kept a close eye on Saturday's big fight from the O2 Arena in London, where Golovkin was in action and stopped IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook in five rounds.
Canelo returns this coming Saturday night against WBO junior middleweight world champion Liam Smith (23-0-1, 13KOs). The HBO Pay-Per-View fight takes place at AT&T Stadium in Texas.
De La Hoya felt Golovkin looked vulnerable in the fight with Brook. The British fighter, who was moving up by thirteen pounds, was able to land hard combinations and used movement to give Golovkin some real issues before he was stopped. Brook had suffered a broken right eye socket in the second round and was experiencing issues with his vision for the next three rounds.
There is a verbal agreement in place for Golovkin and Canelo to fight in September of 2017.
“Golovkin looked vulnerable against the first real fighter who can move. We see things in Golovkin that are going to be exposed when they fight and it’s not going to be pretty,” De La Hoya said to the LA Times. “That’ll happen when Canelo fills into his body at 160 [pounds] and that’s going to be this year, probably.”
The Mexican star could move up to middleweight by the end of the year. Canelo already has a tentative return date of December 10. Once Canelo moves up in weight to 160-pounds, De La Hoya promises that he's going to face the best possible opponents in the division - including Golovkin.
“At 160, Canelo will fight the best. I’m living up to what I said, and this is turning out to being an amazing event. Canelo brings exciting fights, and when Canelo and Golovkin happens, I can’t imagine it not filling up this kind of stadium [a reference to AT&T Stadium],” De La Hoya said.
