By Rick Reeno
Abel Sanchez, who trains WBC/WBA/IBF/IBO middleweight champion Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (35-0, 32KOs), believes Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez (47-1-1, 33KOs) has only himself to blame for the backlash he's receiving from the fans.
At the start of the year, the World Boxing Council ordered Canelo - who held he WBC middleweight crown - to make a mandatory defense against Golovkin. Each boxer was allowed an interim-fight, with the understanding that a mandatory collision would happen in the fall.
After Canelo knocked out Amir Khan on May 7th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, the showdown with Golovkin appeared to be on track. During his post-fight interview, Canelo invited Golovkin into the ring.
Before a packed arena, and a live pay-per-view audience, Canelo accepted a fight with Golovkin at the middleweight limit of 160-pounds and made his infamous statement that 'Mexicans don't f***around.' Canelo was full of adrenaline, and told the press in attendance that he was ready to put his gloves back on to fight Golovkin that very night.
The fight never happened. A few days later, Canelo vacated his title and the sanctioning body made Golovkin the new WBC champion at middleweight.
But their negotiations continued. In the end, a "verbal" agreement was reached for a potential meeting in September 2017. Canelo then announced that he was returning to 154-pounds to challenge WBO champion Liam Smith on September 17th.
According to Sanchez, Canelo's own words were his downfall with the public.
"If they had not said the things that they said. If he had not called Golovkin into the ring, and said all of the bullsh*t that he talked before and after. He could have had more class. He could have said 'we're going to take a different route, we're going to give up the belt and go to 154-pounds.' But no, he's saying 'I'll fight him now, I'll put gloves back on right now, I got big balls and Mexicans don't f*** around,'" Sanchez told BoxingScene.com.
"He said all that bullsh*t and all it does is anger people. Any guy would get criticized for saying stupid sh*t like that. Maybe he needs a better publicist or Oscar [De La Hoya] needs to make sure he says this and doesn't say this, because all he's doing is getting himself into a deeper hole. If you have no intention of fighting him, then just say it. Nobody is going to criticize you for it. They are going to criticize you when you say something stupid and you don't back it up."
"If he didn't say any of those things, he probably would get pass. And it's important to note that he said those things - we didn't say it, nobody else said it, nobody put words in his mouth. It's not like someone said he said something that he didn't say - he said it himself."
