By Carlos Boogs

There appeared to be problems last week, when a potential fight between Gennady Golovkin and Billy Joe Saunders was lingering in the wind.

Golovkin, who holds the IBO, WBA, WBC, IBF middleweight titles, has been pushing to land a unification encounter with the last remaining champion in the division, WBO beltholder Saunders.

The two sides had been talking for several weeks, and Saunders' promoter, Frank Warren, had even paid WBO mandatory challenger Avtandil Khurtsidze a generous step-aside fee to get a deal done with Golovkin.

The fight was being targeted for June 10th, in Golovkin's home country of Kazakhstan.

But there was resistance to that fight.

Besides Saunders, there are also ongoing negotiations to finalize a deal for Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) to face Mexican superstar Saul "Canelo" Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs) in September. Before that can happen, Canelo must first defeat Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on May 6th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Canelo's promoter, Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions, was not in favor of Golovkin taking a June fight and threatened to pull Canelo off the table. He was worried that Golovkin could potentially suffer an injury, that would derail a planned fight with Canelo in the fall.

Last week, Warren revealed that Saunders had agreed to all of the terms for a fight with Golovkin - but the British promoter claimed that he was advised that GGG had suffered an injury.

 “At the moment, they’re saying that Golovkin’s injured,” Warren said to BoxNation. “So we’re waiting to see where this is all going. But as far as I’m concerned, we agreed [to] terms, so much so that we made an interim [title] fight, we paid a guy to step aside to enable it to happen. So we’ve done everything we can to deliver that fight. And Bill deserves it.”

According to Chris Mannix of Yahoo Sports, multiple sources are indicating that Golovkin will not go forward with a June fight - and instead the undefeated champion will concentrate on a fall fight with Canelo - if that deal comes together.

And while the claim of Golovkin being injured has been disputed, his head trainer - Abel Sanchez - does confirm that his fighter was more sore than usual from his last bout - a twelve round decision win over Daniel Jacobs on March 18th. And it doesn't sound like Golovkin wants to enter another training camp for a few more weeks.

“He was sore,” Sanchez told Mannix. “He had a 12-round fight. I didn’t see it the first day in the dressing room. Usually the second or third day you start to feel it and I didn’t check in with him right after. After a long training camp, I’m the last person he would want to see. He is not a complainer. It’s just natural soreness. It was a difficult fight.”