Mexican superstar Canelo Alvarez, has sensibly stated that he doesn’t wish to discuss the Golovkin question until AFTER Saturday’s crunch middleweight clash with Miguel Cotto in Las Vegas, so as not to disrupt his focus.
The WBC middleweight strap, being contested at a 155 catch-weight, is only available for the Mexican to win after Cotto refused to pay $300k sanctioning fees earlier this week, leading many back to the question of a future fight with interim WBC champ, Gennady Golovkin – who will be upgraded to full champion status in the event of a Cotto victory.
At the latest media scrum to promote Saturday’s clash, ‘Canelo’ refused to divert his focus from the task in hand, though cryptically said he doesn’t run from a challenge when asked about Golovkin – presumably, as long as that ‘challenge’ is at a designated catch-weight.
“For me it’s important to concentrate on this fight and my attention is only on this fight,” he said to fighthype.com via translator. “I win this, then you can ask me the [GGG] question. Though I will say this; ‘I never run from any challenge and I will fight anybody.”
Golden Boy CEO Oscar De La Hoya prides himself on saying his company ethos is for the best to fight the best, and should ‘Canelo’ emerge as WBC champion on Saturday night, there will be intense pressure on Alvarez and Golden Boy to make that fight at the correct and sanctioned 160 lb limit.
After all, WBA/IBF boss, Golovkin, has correctly stated his refusal to fight middleweight title fights at a lesser catch-weight numerous times in the past.
The future is dependent on the outcome of Saturday night’s fight.
Cotto/Canelo is on HBO PPV (US) and Boxnation (UK)
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