By Keith Idec
LAS VEGAS – Abel Sanchez isn’t certain who Gennady Golovkin will fight next, much less whether Canelo Alvarez and Golovkin will share a ring come September.
Sanchez is absolutely sure, however, that if the highly anticipated Alvarez-Golovkin pay-per-view fight doesn’t materialize at the time designated by Golden Boy Promotions founder Oscar De La Hoya, it won’t be because Golovkin doesn’t want the fight.
Golovkin’s trainer reiterated Golovkin’s strong desire to face Alvarez in September while he was in Las Vegas over the weekend to work the corner of another fighter he trains, Russian welterweight prospect Konstantin Ponomarev.
“I’ll tell you this,” Sanchez told a group of reporters, “if it doesn’t get made, it’s not because of Golovkin. It’s because of Canelo – I don’t wanna say not bending. But Canelo not being reasonable with what each one is worth.”
The 26-year-old Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs) suffered a fractured right thumb during his ninth-round knockout of England’s Liam Smith (23-1-1, 13 KOs) on September 17 in Arlington, Texas. He is expected to fight again May 6, against an undetermined opponent.
The 34-year-old Golovkin, meanwhile, hopes to face Danny Jacobs sometime in March, either at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan or Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Negotiations are ongoing for that bout, but if it gets made and Golovkin overcomes the bigger, powerful Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) and Alvarez wins his spring bout it would set the stage for Alvarez-Golovkin to finally happen.
De La Hoya and Alvarez adamantly stated in the immediate aftermath of Alvarez’s sixth-round knockout of England’s Amir Khan on May 7 at T-Mobile Arena that Alvarez would box Golovkin next. They later decided to move back down from middleweight to junior middleweight for a much lower-profile fight against Smith and indicated Mexico’s Alvarez would fight Kazakhstan’s Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) in September 2017.
The card headlined by the Alvarez-Smith match drew a crowd of 51,240 to the Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium. Sanchez doesn’t think that gate success should matter in Alvarez-Golovkin negotiations.
“The thing is, if they wanna make the fight it has to be something that’s beneficial for both parties,” Sanchez said. “Beneficial in a way that Golovkin is satisfied with what he gets. … If Golovkin says [what’s proposed is] OK for him, then that’s OK. But you’ve gotta do it both ways. Both guys have gotta be happy with what they’re getting.
“Who can [Alvarez] fight where he can make the kind of money he can make for fighting Golovkin? [The Liam Smith] fight, compared to a fight with Golovkin, makes how much? Not how many people were there, because [Alvarez-Golovkin] could be at the Mandalay Bay [Events Center], at 12,000 seats, and they could sell them at $3,000 a seat. It’s what Golovkin’s making. It’s what can [Alvarez] make if he doesn’t fight Golovkin?”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
