Is an Alvarez vs. Golovkin Superfight Primed and Ready After Canelo's Victory?

The boxing world moves quickly. On Saturday night, the only fight that mattered was the pay-per-view spectacular between Miguel Cotto and Saul "Canelo" Alvarez. It was another chapter in the ever-expanding Mexico vs. Puerto Rico rivalry, a fight that would decide who occupied the catbird seat in the battle for boxing's future.

It mattered.

But before the scorecards declaring Canelo the winner were even read, as Saturday night turned into Sunday morning, boxing had moved on. Cotto, 35, unable to hurt Canelo with his punches and looking every bit the welterweight playing at middleweight, was old news. A new fight was on the tip of every tongue, including HBO commentator Max Kellerman's.

Canelo vs. Gennady "GGG" Golovkin.

After the bout, a unanimous-decision win that crowned him the lineal middleweight champion, the 25-year-old Mexican star indicated to Kellerman a willingness to meet the challenge, to be the anti-Floyd Mayweather Jr. To fight the best in the world, not five years later in the midst of a steep decline, but now. Right now even.

"I'll put the gloves on right now and fight him," Canelo said. "I respect he's a great champion. I know him. He's a friend of mine. But right now I'll put the gloves on against him."

Isaac Brekken/Getty Images

It was a canny political move in the moment, and it brought a rousing cheer from the Las Vegas crowd. But there's a difference between saying something and doing something. Words, after all, are mere wind—and at the post-fight press conference, Golden Boy chief Oscar De La Hoya immediately began to walk back Canelo's brave words.

"There’s obviously other fights at 154," he said. "I have to get a feel for what Canelo wants to do. What his body tells him to do. Making the weight: He made 154-and-a-half, I believe. So the question is will he stay at 154 or stay at 160. Those are the things we’re going to talk about. I’m not saying he’s going to fight somebody else. I’m not announcing anything. We’re going to talk about it."

HBO play-by-play man Jim Lampley practically called this shot in the days before the bout on Fight Hub TV (via Bad Left Hook). A veteran of the game, Lampley wasn't convinced a boxer in his prime was going to be all that happy to fight a wrecking ball like Golovkin. It's easier to say you're going to fight him in the heat of the moment than it is to convince your promoters to let you actually step into ring.

Lampley said:

"

GGG's 33. If we're gonna see it, let's see it now. The issue needs to be confronted as quickly as possible for GGG because of his advancing age. I'm hoping that Canelo, if he wins the fight, will choose to fight him. But typically, you ask any top fighter in the world about fighting GGG, and the answer you get is, 'Oh, yeah, I wanna fight him, but not next. I've got something else to do next.' And I think there's a decent chance that Canelo, even if he wins a huge victory tomorrow night, might have 'something else to do next' before he wants to fight GGG.

"

Fighter	Golovkin	Canelo
Height	5' 10 1/2"	5'9"
Reach	70"	70 1/2"
Age	33	25
Record	34-0 (31 KO)	46-1-1 (32 KO)
Rounds Fought	154	326

SB Nation's Scott Christ believes that Golden Boy's crumbling empire needs Canelo to maintain a position at the top of the sport. That may prevent it from pulling the trigger on the fight the world is waiting for. The wild card, he writes, is Canelo and his willingness to test himself against the best, even if that isn't always the wisest course of action:

"

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.

"

A strapping junior middleweight, Canelo has the frame and the game to step into the 160-pound division permanently. As he ages, in fact, it will likely become necessary. But you can understand De La Hoya's hesitance here, delaying what might be the inevitable.

Golovkin is no mere fighter. He's a world destroyer, Kyzaghan reincarnated, more myth at this point than man. Of his 34 professional opponents, only three have lasted the distance. No one has managed the feat since 2008, 21 consecutive foes falling to his combination of Olympic-class technique and preternatural power.

Would Canelo stand a chance against such a force? Would any man?

For his part, Golovkin believes the new champion is game for the challenge.

"I think so, I do," Golovkin told Yahoo Sports' Kevin Iole. "I think that’s how he is. He wants to fight."

By the time Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao stepped into the ring they were aging millionaires, more brand than boxer, each desperate to defend his legacy. Deciding which man was the better fighter was a distant concern in what became a mega-event with the budget of a small nation state.

Boxing legends aren't built in the final years of a fighter's career, when his game is composed of hard-earned trickery and his body held together by duct tape and will. A man proves his mettle at the height of his powers, facing other fighters also at their absolute best.

If the Golovkin vs. Canelo match happens—the World Boxing Council says Canelo and Golovkin have 15 days to make it so—it will be the first superfight in some time to feature fighters at the apex of their skills. That would go a long way toward rebuilding trust and faith, both in short supply after the superfight that wasn't.

Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.