By Edward Chaykovsky

Stephen Espinoza, head of Showtime Sports, is not convinced that we'll see a showdown between Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez (47-1-1, 33KOs) and WBA/WBC/IBO/IBF middleweight champion Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (35-0, 32KOs) in the fall of 2017.

Earlier in the year, Canelo was ordered by the World Boxing Council to defend his 160-pound title against Golovkin, who was the mandatory challenger.

The sanctioning body allowed each fighter to take an interim-bout with the understanding that they would face each other in the fall.

Following last month's knockout of Amir Khan at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Canelo invited Golovkin to the ring and then accepted his challenge by stating, live on HBO, that "Mexicans don't f*** around."

Shortly after that victory, Canelo announced his decision to vacate the WBC title and then the sanctioning body appointed Golovkin as their full champion. The two sides continued to negotiate, but then it was decided to push back the fight until September of 2017.

Last week, Canelo announced that he was dropping back to 154-pounds to face Liam Smith for the WBO title on September 17. Golovkin is potentially facing British middleweight champion Chris Eubank Jr. on August 27th in the UK. 

Fans have been up in arms, taking to the social networks to voice their displeasure since Canelo's decision to hold off on the fight. Espinoza believes the statement - regarding Canelo-Golovkin taking place in the fall of 2017 - was issued in order to calm down the angry mob.

"My take on it, and I don't know for sure, they sort of said it was going to happen this fall- and it didn't happen this fall. They are getting killed for it, so they said let's put something out to stop the bleeding - 'okay we'll do it next fall.' Whether or not it happens we'll see, but I think they put something out to stop the bleeding and said 'let's put our finger in the wall before the entire [wall] breaks and everyone murders us for not giving the fight that we promised to give,'" Espinoza told Sway.