The biggest fight that can be made in boxing, aside from a rematch between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, is Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez vs. Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin. It's the type of superfight that would draw casual interest and leave hardcore fans salivation. What's more, it would pit champion vs. champion in an intriguing matchup between the hardest hitter in the sport and it's biggest star. Let's project some odds.
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Projected odds
Gennady Golovkin -200
Saul Alvarez +175
DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH
Golovkin currently holds the WBA super middleweight, the IBF, WBC and IBO middleweight titles. Alvarez is the lineal champion and owns the The Ring and WBC titles. A fight between GGG and Canelo makes a ton of sense. But this is boxing, and rarely do fights that make sense happen so easily.
Canelo has openly refused to meet Golovkin at 160 pounds, which is his natural weight class. Instead, Alvarez has campaigned to make the fight a catchweight bout at 155. And there's no good reason except for the fact that he can, and that it would give him an advantage of making GGG cut additional weight before the fight.
What's more, Alvarez just won the belt. From his standpoint, why would he risk it so soon against somebody as dangerous as Golovkin? I don't think that Canelo is necessarily scared, but watching Golovkin mow down opponents certainly has to be a bit alarming. And as the bigger star, the ball is in Canelo's court - he's actually being smart by using his promotional power to tilt the odds in his favor.
That's why the five pounds that separate these two seems more like a canyon. And instead of these two meeting in early 2016, it's likely that this is something that's going to drag on. It'll draw more interest in the bout, making it a bigger money bout for both. My best guess is that this fight will take place in the late fall.
Even though Golovkin is Alvarez's mandatory opponent for the WBC title, there's a contingency in the fine print that allows both to fight other opponents for their next bouts and still have Alvarez keep his title. There's nothing wrong with letting the hype build for the fight, but it'll leave boxing fans hanging in the vacuum of Mayweather's departure. But that's something that boxing fans are used to by now.
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