By Miguel Rivera
Abel Sanchez, trainer for IBF, IBO, WBA, WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs), says their upcoming opponent - Saul "Canelo" Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs).
Golovkin will defend his titles against Canelo on September 16th, during Mexican Independence Day weekend.
For this contest, Canelo will be officially moving up to the middleweight limit of 160-pounds.
In his first and only loss, Canelo was dominated over twelve rounds by Floyd Mayweather Jr. in September 2013. That bout took place at a catch-weight of 152-pounds.
Following that fight, Canelo fought for several years at a catch-weight of 155. Even in his two appearances in the middleweight division, the weight limit of those contests were at 155.
Canelo moved down last September to 154, to capture the WBO title from Liam Smith.
But for his last fight, which took place last month, Canelo went all the way to a catch-weight of 164.5-pounds to dominate Mexican rival Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. to a lopsided twelve round decision.
Sanchez does not view Canelo as a the smaller man moving up. He does feel Golovkin is physically stronger and a bigger puncher, but says Canelo is just as big. The veteran trainer feels Canelo was killing himself in every fight, to squeeze down to weights like 154 and 155. After his official weigh-ins, Canelo would often rehydrate above 170-pounds - and some of his opponents have claimed that Canelo weighed between 175 to 180 on fight night.
As stated in the past, Sanchez believes Canelo would have already been competing in the middleweight division - if Golovkin was not around.
"I think Canelo has been a middleweight for some time. He was killing himself to make the limit of 154-pounds, 155 pounds. If GGG had not been there [at middleweight], Canelo would have gone up to middleweight, but now he is going to fight someone who has been at 160 pounds for a long time," Sanchez said to ESPN Deportes.