By Steve Kim
Saul "Canelo" Alvarez recently caused a bit of a stir by stating that if he's victorious against Miguel Cotto on November 21st for the WBC middleweight title - he'd only consider facing Gennady Golovkin at a catch-weight of 155-pounds (which happens to be the contracted weight for the Cotto-Alvarez fight).
The WBC had mandated that the winner of the October 17th bout between Golovkin and David Lemieux face the winner of the upcoming Cotto-Canelo showdown.
Golovkin dispatched Lemieux in eight rounds at the Madison Square Garden a couple of weeks ago to add the IBF belt to his WBA and IBO straps. His status as the WBC interim-champion (which he earned by knocking out Marco Antonio Rubio last year) placed him in a position to face whoever held the full WBC belt.
So will Golovkin cede to Alvarez's demands (should he beat Cotto, of course) or be satisfied with picking up a vacant belt?
"That's been (Gennady's) goal, to unify all the titles. You can't force someone to fight and that's been the point the whole time," explained Tom Loeffler, the managing director of K2 Promotions, which handles Golovkin's career.
"We can't predict what they're going to do. I think it'll be a good fight between 'Canelo' and Cotto and Gennady's interested in unifying all the titles whether someone doesn't fight him or not.
"If he gets the title that way, obviously, he would prefer to fight the winner for the title but if they choose to vacate the title - you can't force it."
As for the immediate plans of Golovkin, Loeffler says they will formulate a plan after November 21st.
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com
