By Edward Chaykovsky
WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (24-0, 12 KOs) wants Gennady Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs), holder of the IBF, IBO, WBC, WBA titles, to make up his mind regarded a potential fight for June.
Golovkin was in action last Saturday night at New York's Madison Square Garden, and won a tough twelve round unanimous decision over mandatory challenger Daniel Jacobs.
Saunders has been out of the ring since December, when he made the first defense of his title with a lackluster decision win over Artur Akavov.
There are ongoing discussions for a showdown between Golovkin and Saunders for June 10 in GGG's homeland of Kazakhstan.
At the same time, there are ongoing discussions for Golovkin to fight Saul "Canelo" Alvarez in September during Mexican Independence Day weekend. Canelo will first have to win his next ring outing, when he moves up to a catch-weight of 164.5-pounds to fight countryman Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
There is some confusion on whether or not the June fight is going forward, because Canelo's promoter, Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions, is not in favor of GGG taking a June interim bout. According to De La Hoya, the event in September could be severely affected or even canceled if Golovkin suffers an injury, gets cuts, struggles to win or is upset.
Saunders wants to know what the story is and he wants to know now. The British boxer says he is ready at this moment to sign a contract and puts the ball in Golovkin's court to get the deal done.
"My message to him is this: 'You can keep going on about how you want all the belts, but it's put up or shut up now. You either want to fight me in June or not. You've been mentioning my name, and I'll happily, happily oblige you with a fight. Let's stop wasting time and let's go,'" Saunders told Isaac Robinson.
