Canelo Alvarez's Next Fight: Best Opponents for Potential Next Bout

It had all the makings of a prolonged drama.

Right up until the sudden impact.

Canelo Alvarez scored what’s arguably the most significant victory of his career Saturday night in Las Vegas, cold-cocking Amir Khan with a single right hand to end a compelling WBC middleweight title match at 2:37 of the sixth round.

It was his first defense of the crown he wrested from lineal kingpin Miguel Cotto last November, and the KO of the Year candidate shot put a violent end to a gutsy effort from Khan—who was fighting above the 147-pound weight class for the first time in his career.

“He’s a fast fighter,” Alvarez told HBO’s Max Kellerman after the fight. “But I knew time would come to my favor. You saw that.”

Khan was indeed quicker and busier through the initial four rounds before Alvarez had his best round in the fifth thanks to a stepped-up attack to the body. By the time the final punch landed a round later, he’d connected on 64 punches to Khan’s 48, including 28 body shots.

“This was another clinically brilliant performance for Canelo Alvarez,” HBO’s Jim Lampley said. “I don’t how many fighters I’ve seen who are so constantly in control of their emotions.”

The victory also set off a torrent of conjecture about whom Alvarez should next meet, including input from the fighter himself, the HBO announce crew and, oddly, both Khan and his trainer, Virgil Hunter.

We’ve put together our list of suggestions here—complete with boxing’s ever-present mix of competitive fantasy and promotional reality—and we invite your input in the comment section.

5. Erislandy Lara

Eric Jamison/Associated Press

Compiling lists like this always means mixing fighters whom the fans think a certain guy should fight and fighters he’s actually likely to fight given promotional tie-ups, network allegiances and style aversions.

Count Erislandy Lara in among that last bunch.

Though no one labeled their July 2014 bout as a classic, there are more than a few people who believe the Cuban export now residing in Houston was the second man to beat Alvarez over 12 rounds.

The judges saw it differently, though, with Levi Martinez (117-111 Canelo) and Dave Moretti (115-113 Canelo) overruling Jerry Roth’s 115-113 card for Lara and prompting post-fight calls for investigation from members of the frustrated loser’s camp.

Thus, there's little reason to believe Lara will get a rematch, though it's probably deserved.

Regardless, he's since rebuilt his career and won a title at 154 pounds, and he continues to harbor a desire for a second go-round with his only active conqueror. In fact, he told Boxing Scene that he’d be happy to fight Alvarez and middleweight KO machine Gennady Golovkin in succession.

“I’m willing to fight Canelo next, and winner signs off on fighting GGG after that,” he said. “There’s always unfinished business when there’s debatable fights, and me and Canelo have a score to settle.”

4. David Lemieux

Gregory Payan/Associated Press

Meanwhile, some fights seem likely to occur even though no one is really asking for them.

Enter David Lemieux.

It’s not that the 27-year-old Canadian isn’t a good fighter. He bounced back from a pair of unsightly 2011 losses, captured a title at middleweight and accounted himself bravely—if not successfully—in a unification match with Golovkin last October at Madison Square Garden.

He parlayed that into a last-bout-before-the-main-event slot on Saturday’s show, which theoretically means he’s in the mix for Alvarez—presuming Canelo wants to try out a real middleweight, just not a real one who was born in Kazakhstan.

And, oh, what a coincidence!

They just happen to be working with the same company, Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions.

“Yes, I do see (Lemieux) facing Canelo down the line. This was obviously by design. Right now Canelo is the man in boxing and he’s the pay-per-view star,” De La Hoya said, via Dan Ambrose of BoxingNews24.com. “David Lemieux is, you know, coming back and wants to prove to everyone that he still belongs in the top of the middleweight division and is going to be world champion again.”

3. Manny Pacquiao

Isaac Brekken/Associated Press

Now, we move on to the “they say they’re retired, but does anyone really believe it?” portion of our program.

And toward that end, we give you Manny Pacquiao.

The Filipino said his emotional farewells after what amounted to a third straight wide decision over Tim Bradley last month in Las Vegas (even if Pacquiao officially lost the first one). But even as he was accepting congratulations for a career’s worth of jobs well done, he conceded that his heart was just 50-50 about actually leaving for good.

His own trainer, in fact, said he hoped his man would continue.

And his opponent, the now-thrice-beaten Bradley, said there was certainly no competitive reason that Pacquiao should walk away.

Add a few dozen million dollars to the mix and adieus are even tougher to come by.

That’s what could presumably be on the table—not to mention a chance at the Ring Magazine middleweight title—should competitive fire to punch people in the mouth trump the electoral mojo that comes from an incremental climb up the Philippines’ political ladder.

Top Rank czar Bob Arum said, via the El Paso Times, the concept has been discussed and that Alvarez would indeed be the target of choice if Pacquiao’s retirement turns into a brief hiatus.

“Manny is running for the Senate and is officially retired,” Arum said. “But if he comes out of retirement, Canelo is a guy that (trainer) Freddie Roach and he are talking about wanting to fight.”

2. Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Isaac Brekken/Associated Press

It’s hard enough to catch the eye of one retired fighter.

But Alvarez is such a special guy, he’s got two.

Of course, no one on the Floyd Mayweather Jr. side of the equation has been quite as bold about suggesting a Canelo match as Bob Arum has been on Pacquiao’s behalf. But when jab comes to cross, a follow-up to the third-biggest pay-per-view show of all time has to be on somebody’s radar.

Everyone at the MGM Grand not named CJ Ross saw Money as a wide winner when the two men squared off in September 2013, but the confluence of events since then—Mayweather getting three years older, Alvarez getting three years better—seems to suggest that an encore may look different.

And the fact a second go-round would provide a chance for Mayweather to go 50-0 while acquiring the lineal middleweight title would go a long way toward establishing a storyline.

Alvarez’s manager said it would allow his man to erase a resume smudge that still irritates.

"Of course we are interested in that fight, because it's a thorn stuck in our side,” Eddy Reynoso said, per Boxing Scene (h/t Miguel Vasquez of the Christian Post). “But now it will be at our weight—154-155 pounds is where Canelo is comfortable.”

His promoter, too, says if a second bout occurs, it’ll occur with Canelo as the A-side.

“If he comes back I think it should be against Canelo,” Oscar De La Hoya said, per ESPN Deportes (h/t Boxing Scene), claiming the purse split “should be 70/30 for Canelo. It's Canelo's time.”

1. Gennady Golovkin

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Keep climbing, and eventually you get to the top of the ladder.

While no one suggests Golovkin has the career swag of a Mayweather or Pacquiao, or makes as much competitive or promotional sense to Alvarez as Lara or Lemieux, respectively, he does have one thing going for him.

He’s the people’s choice.

The Kazakhstan native hasn’t lost a fight as a pro and hasn’t allowed a foe to reach the final bell since 2008. And slowly but surely, the IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight king has established himself as the 160-pound commodity with whom fans want to match other fighters who want to claim middleweight glory.

And now he’s not only a competitive challenge for Alvarez, he’s a mandatory one.

The WBC has indicated Canelo must face Golovkin now that the optional defense with Khan is complete, and Triple-G’s team is indeed hoping he’ll take that path instead of leaving their man to legitimize his claim on the Mexico-based organization’s full-fledged belt against a less lucrative option.

“We can’t speculate what other fighters are going to do. We have a clear mandate from the WBC,” Golovkin’s promoter, Tom Loeffler, told IBOBoxing.com. “And just like the IBF gave us the mandate to
fight (Dominic) Wade, that is the same mandate that the WBC has for the winner. A fight with Canelo is clearly the biggest fight in the sport of boxing, so that is something we hope we can make.

“If they choose not to fight for whatever reason, they risk losing the title and it is one step closer that Gennady has to his goal of unifying the middleweight division.”

If Saturday's post-fight testosterone means anything, the negotiations may be brief.

"Let me tell you," Alvarez said to HBO's Max Kellerman. "In Mexico, we don't f--k around. We don’t come to play in this sport. I fear no one in this sport. We can fight right now, we’ll put on the gloves again."