By Miguel Rivera
Fans have been calling for the fight since the fall of 2015.
Last Saturday night from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, the contest was finally announced as a deal done.
Saul "Canelo" Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs) will challenge Gennady Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) for the WBC, WBA, IBO, IBF middleweight titles on September 16th. The venue is currently being worked out.
For a long time, the two boxers were arguing over the weight limit. Canelo wanted GGG to come down to a catch-weight of 155, and Golovkin refused to do the fight at anything less than 160-pounds.
Then the two sides were in conflict over the financial terms. Golovkin wanted a percentage of the revenue, while Canelo was only willing to offer him a flat fee.
De La Hoya says the two sides were able to work everything out once they came together at the negotiating table.
"I can not talk about the details of the agreement, because there are clauses in the agreement that are very strict, so I'm not able to discuss the fine print of the contract - but the boxers are going to be very happy," De La Hoya told ESPN Deportes.
"The promoter is the one who organizes the fight and signs the contracts. There are other separate contracts signed by the boxers, and obviously, as Canelo has his promotional company, he also signs as a promoter. Regarding the promotion and this fight - both fighters are involved, they know everything that is happening in the negotiations. In the case of GGG, he works closely with Tom Loeffler in the same way that Canelo does with Golden Boy, and we are always working together with the boxer and we want the best for our represented boxers."
"Look, it was not that complicated [to get the Canelo-Golovkin deal done]. It was not so difficult. To tell you the truth, all that was needed was to sit down to negotiate. And we did it two or three times, we reached an agreement and the fight was made. All that was needed was to polish some details and, perhaps, the most complicated aspects have been, for example, the issue of who is going to come out first to the ring.
"We have on the one hand, a middleweight champion like Golovkin who will put his four world titles into play in a twelve-round, 160-pound fight at the middleweight limit and not a gram more and we agreed to use 10-ounce gloves, as they have always been used, as it should be, like in the old days, when someone was fighting for a world championship."