Canelo Alvarez’s next fight: Gennady Golovkin awaits, and we’ll know soon if it’s happening

Following Saturday night’s expected knockout of Amir Khan, there is only one fight for Canelo Alvarez. Or, well, that’s not really true. There are many fights he could take. But the fight everyone wants to see, now more than ever, is Alvarez defending the lineal middleweight championship against the man considered by most to be the true best middleweight in the world: Gennady Golovkin.

Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KO) and Golovkin (35-0, 32 KO) are two of the hottest names in boxing. They’re the 1-2 fighters in the middleweight division. And they’ve been circling one another since last November, when Alvarez defeated Miguel Cotto to win the WBC title and the Ring Magazine championship.

Golovkin, who holds the WBA and IBF belts, is a merciless destroyer, a true knockout artist and an exceptional all-around fighter. He has found it hard to secure opponents at times, because it’s not easy to find guys with something to lose who actually want to climb into the ring with him. He fights regularly, two or three times per year, against anyone who will dare take the challenge. And despite Alvarez’s claim to the middleweight throne, Golovkin is seen by many as The Man. Consider this sort of a Joffrey Baratheon/Tywin Lannister situation. Joffrey was the recognized king, he got to wear the crown and all that, but Tywin was the true ruler of the realm. It’s unlikely that Golovkin has an agitated son who is going to crossbow him off the toilet, so we might actually get to see this power struggle play out.

There has been reluctance on the end of Alvarez and Golden Boy Promotions. Boxing promotion is all about risk/reward -- more specifically, it’s about getting the greatest reward without taking the greatest risk. Golovkin represents the greatest potential reward for Alvarez in the middleweight division, but also by far the greatest risk. The same is true of Alvarez to Golovkin.

The public issues here are about the weight. Golovkin, a true middleweight, fights at 160 pounds, the division’s limit. The WBC has a plan in place right now for Golovkin and Alvarez to meet at 160 pounds. Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez and promoter Tom Loeffler have repeatedly stated they have that in writing. Alvarez wants to fight at a maximum of 155 pounds, claiming he’s not truly a middleweight yet. He also doesn’t want to grind off one more pound to stay at the junior middleweight limit.

Sanchez calls this a “diva” move on Canelo’s part, saying that he thinks Alvarez sees himself as bigger than the sport, and disrespectful of the history of the middleweight division. Golovkin has also said he thinks Canelo disrespects the meaning of the title by insisting on a fight at 155 pounds. But Alvarez is the guy who is worth more money right now. His fight in November with Cotto was a pay-per-view hit, and he has been guided for years to take over the position as the sport’s PPV leader in a post-Mayweather and post-Pacquiao world, which we’re at least getting very close to, even if we’re not quite there yet.

How well Alvarez-Khan does on pay-per-view may be irrelevant. The two sides are going to speak on Sunday, May 8, about this fight. The WBC has mandated that the sides have 15 days to make a deal, and that if Alvarez does not fight Golovkin, he will be stripped of their title. Canelo would still hold the lineal championship, for whatever it’s worth, but giving up a title to avoid a fight would be a terrible look for someone who is supposedly leading the charge in a “new era” for the sport, one where we get the fights we want.

In other words, dragging this out any longer would remind people of the five-year wait for Mayweather-Pacquiao. That fight wound up busting every pay-per-view, gate and revenue record known in boxing history, but there’s really no debate that it came after its peak value as a fight, and long after the money is gone, the legacy remains. Mayweather-Pacquiao, as we got it, is already not aging well. It made the business people happy, but the boxing fans were left wondering what could have been in 2011 or 2012. Maybe the exact same thing, but we’ll never really know for sure.

Golovkin is 34 years old. He’s a relatively new star in the sport, but he’s not getting any younger. Canelo, at 25, has more time to wait this out if he wants.

The good news is that Golden Boy’s Oscar De La Hoya claimed at Saturday night’s post-fight press conference that he would make the call with an offer on Sunday, and Alvarez even alluded to there being no issue with weight. Alvarez even had asked Golovkin into the ring after his win over Khan, saying that he’s not scared of GGG. It’s all good talk, but now it’s time to make the fight happen. Will the two sides actually agree to terms? Will there be a catchweight? Golovkin’s side say they won’t go under a 160-pound limit, but maybe there’s a middle ground at 157, where the money and the opportunity is too big to say no. Maybe there’s not. Maybe Golovkin’s team really are content to let Canelo Alvarez pass on the fight as they say the WBC’s terms mandate, specifically that the fight be at 160 pounds.

Either way, we’ll probably know within the next two weeks whether or not this fight is happening. If it’s not, Canelo’s options could include WBO middleweight titleholder Billy Joe Saunders, a rematch with Miguel Cotto (who decided not to fight in June, perhaps to see if the offer would come in), and contenders Chris Eubank Jr. or David Lemieux.

The wild card may be Manny Pacquiao. Pacquiao announced that he would retire after his April 9 fight with Timothy Bradley Jr, and he is running for a Senate seat in the Philippines, with elections held this coming Monday. But Pacquiao also clearly left the door open for a fight, and his promoter Bob Arum has floated the idea of Pacquiao facing Canelo Alvarez. It’s a tricky fight to make, because Alvarez doesn’t want to fight under 155 any more than he wants to fight over that weight, and Pacquiao said years ago, after a 150-pound catchweight win over Antonio Margarito, that he didn’t want to fight over 147 pounds again. There’s money in that fight, but even so, can Alvarez and Golden Boy get away with fighting a welterweight name two straight fights? Is Pacquiao even interested?

There has also been light talk of Alvarez getting a rematch with Floyd Mayweather, who defeated Canelo in 2013, but that seems unlikely. Mayweather appears brand loyal to CBS/Showtime, and Alvarez has a contract with HBO. Those sides have worked together twice -- on Mayweather-Pacquiao and Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson -- but it’s sort of a nightmare getting the rival premium cable networks together, and there just might not be enough money in Mayweather-Canelo II to do that, even if Mayweather was open to the idea.

The bottom line is that the fight to make right now is Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin. That’s what the boxing fans want the most. That’s the fight where we can see two guys in their primes take a risk together. That has the ingredients of being a truly memorable and great fight. Hopefully, we don’t see what we all want dragged through the media mud for five years, like we saw with the “old era.”