Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya believes the highly anticipated showdown between middleweight champions Saul "Canelo" Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin will eventually happen.
Alvarez is set to defend his World Boxing Council middleweight title against Amir Khan on May 7. If he wins, Alvarez will have no other choice but to defend his title against Golovkin if he wants to keep the belt. When asked about the Alvarez-Golovkin bout, De La Hoya is unsure of the fight date but guaranteed that the showdown will happen.
"Is he going to fight him? Absolutely, that's no issue whatsoever," De La Hoya told Los Angeles Times, referring to Canelo's desire to face Golovkin. "But the question is when. Our thoughts are that the fight is going to eventually happen."
Golovkin, who owns a perfect 34-0 record with 31 knockout victories, is the mandatory challenger to Canelo's title. However, De La Hoya believes that the Alvarez-Golovkin showdown needs more time to generate interest in order to live up to its billing as the next super fight in boxing after the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao bout.
"We have to build this fight up to be the next super-fight. And, yes, it will be the next super-fight," De La Hoya continued. "The difference with this one is there will be action, there will be knockdowns -- probably a knockout -- so it's a matter of focusing all of our energies on May 7 with Amir Khan and then we'll take it from there."
Alvarez is reportedly planning to delay his showdown against Golovkin. But in an interview with RingTV, Golovkin insisted that he is not willing to wait for two more years to get a shot against Alvarez, who won the title in November via a unanimous decision victory against Miguel Cotto.
Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions also insisted that Alvarez should face Golovkin later this year. If Alvarez declines to collide with Golovkin, the WBC middleweight champion will be stripped off his title, while the Kazakh knockout artist will be declared as full champion.
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