By Miguel Rivera
K2 Promotions head Tom Loeffler, who promotes IBF, WBC, WBA, IBO middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs), is not ruling out the possibility of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (50-2-1, 32 KOs) scoring an upset win over Saul "Canelo" Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs).
Canelo and Chavez Jr. will collide on May 6th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
There is a catch-weight of 164.5-pounds in place for their HBO Pay-Per-View headline fight.
Behind the scenes, there are ongoing discussions to finalize a deal for a September fight between Canelo and Golovkin. There is a strong possibility that Golovkin will take an additional fight on June 10 in his homeland of Kazakhstan, against WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders of the UK in a five belt unification.
Chavez Jr., should he win, has already promised to fight Golovkin. Canelo is a big favorite in the fight, because Chavez Jr. has not fought below the super middleweight limit since 2012. Chavez has also been erratic during past training camps and struggled to stay in shape. Canelo has fought above 155-pounds.
While Loeffler is picking Canelo to win the fight, he feels Chavez Jr. is a live dog who can upset the odds.
For this fight, Chavez Jr. retained Hall of Fame trainer Nacho Beristain and top conditioning coach Angel "Memo" Heredia.
Chavez Jr., based on some of his recent photos, appears to be in great shape.
"Chavez has a good opportunity. Chavez has always been talented, but he hasn't always trained to the best that he could. But with his Mexican pride, I think if there is one fight that will motivate Chavez - it's going to be the fight against Canelo. I think Canelo is going to win, he's the favorite. But we have a lot of respect for Chavez. Golovkin, Abel [Sanchez], they have a lot of respect for the Chávez family," Loeffler said.
