Canelo Alvarez’s next fight: Golovkin looms, but will he be next?

With his win over Miguel Cotto combining with a changing of the guard to elevate Canelo Alvarez to a new status in the boxing world, the 25-year-old Mexican superstar and new middleweight world champion has a lot of options, but there are three big letters staring him down immediately: GGG.

Gennady Golovkin may not be the lineal champion, but he is considered the best middleweight in the world by almost everyone. Golovkin, a 33-year-old Kazakh destroyer, is coming off of his own big win on October 17, when he unified the WBA and IBF middleweight titles with a stoppage win over Canadian slugger David Lemieux.

That fight exposed a couple of things: first, that Golovkin’s overall skill and power combination is unmatched in the middleweight division, and second, and more importantly in some ways, that he is not yet a pay-per-view star in the sport. Though he draws good ratings on HBO, Golovkin’s first run as a pay-per-view A-side was a total flop on the business side, with rumors that it did less than 100,000 buys in the United States.

Golovkin (34-0, 31 KO) is a fearsome fighter, unique in the way he mixes a sadistic streak with an outwardly friendly demeanor, but one that also borders on arrogance. Golovkin has called past victims “good boys,” and has openly admitted that in some fights, he carried opponents so that he could get in more “practice.” He sounds like a villain on paper, but he’s really not. He’s just honest, a rare thing for boxing.

To date, Canelo Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KO) has also been an honest sort, more or less. Though many cash cow type fighters are steered away from legitimate risk, and often are complicit in wanting to make as much money with as little trouble as possible, Alvarez has notably taken three fights that in some ways did not make great sense.

When Miguel Cotto was first mentioned as an opponent in 2012, Cotto had to get through a fight with Austin Trout first. Trout upset Cotto. Richard Schaefer, then the head of Golden Boy Promotions, immediately tried to salvage the Canelo-Cotto idea, but Canelo insisted on facing Trout instead, as he was now the new top threat at 154 pounds. He beat Trout at San Antonio’s Alamodome in 2013.

Later that year, a 23-year-old Alvarez, a rising superstar in the sport, wanted to fight Floyd Mayweather, the best boxer on the planet. It was great money, but a little foolish, and ran the risk of potentially harming Alvarez’s “brand.” He took the fight, and he was outclassed.

In 2014, Canelo and Golden Boy found themselves with no real options other than to face dangerous Cuban southpaw Erislandy Lara, and Canelo took the fight. Lara is the type of fighter -- skilled, tricky, and unable to draw fans to a fight -- that name fighters avoid if possible. Canelo wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about it at first, but he took it. He won a narrow split decision.

Golovkin, however, may be another story. While Trout and Lara were dangerous fights to take, Alvarez was a slight favorite against both, and neither of them were serious threats to knock him out. GGG is a different animal, and even more than that, the promotional company behind him may not want the fight.

Golden Boy Promotions has undergone significant changes in the last year and a half. When Richard Schaefer was booted from power in the company, returning real control to Oscar De La Hoya, most of “their” fighters walked with the powerful adviser Al Haymon, who in many ways was using Golden Boy as a puppet company to serve as his promoter, with Schaefer fully aware that they were operating without Golden Boy contracts, something De La Hoya rather questionably claims he had no knowledge of at the time. (This is questionable because, well, everyone knew that. It wasn’t really a secret.)

Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions brand has emerged as arguably the dominant force in American boxing this year especially, spreading its wings with regular shows on NBC, CBS, ESPN, Spike, NBC Sports Network, FOX Sports 1, and soon, FOX proper. Golden Boy, though, has been left without any real star fighters beyond Alvarez.

That means that the company could be hesitant to risk their one and only money attraction on a fight with Golovkin any time soon. Alvarez won the vacant WBC middleweight belt with the win over Cotto, and it came with a condition: agree to terms with Golovkin within 15 days, or be stripped of the belt. There is some doubt that the sanctioning body will actually stick to that. In boxing, the governing bodies say a lot of things they don’t really follow up on in the end. And Alvarez is the money fighter here, not Golovkin.

For Canelo’s part, though, he’s playing the willing participant in the deal. Asked about Golovkin by HBO’s Max Kellerman last night, he said through an interpreter that if Kellerman wanted him to put his gloves back on and fight GGG -- who was in attendance as a spectator -- right then, he would do so.

There is good reason to be optimistic about the Canelo-Golovkin idea, due to Alvarez’s past of taking fights that many thought he’d avoid, or be directed to avoid. Being Golden Boy’s only money fight comes with a more positive potential, too: since he’s really all that the company has, they would be best off doing what he wants, if he really wants it.

There is some chance that Canelo and Golovkin could come to an agreement to take interim bouts, and save their own fight for September of next year. That would allow Alvarez a sort of “victory lap” fight, and perhaps even a chance to acclimate a bit more to middleweight, even though he would likely be able to push for a catchweight to face GGG.

Golovkin, too, would potentially get a chance to tune up a bit more. He has for the last three years taken a February or March trip to Monte Carlo, fighting for good money in front of wealthy fans who come to see one of the best fighters in the world do his thing. A return trip against just about anyone will pay him good money.

In short, it’s worth being optimistic about the Canelo-Golovkin fight actually happening in 2016. If it doesn’t come in May, there are plenty of other fighters who could face Alvarez in May, but few available who are truly lucrative. Maybe we’ll get the fight we all want to see next. Maybe not. Boxing can be both frustratingly predictable and wildly unpredictable.