Is Canelo Alvarez's Reputation at Stake If Gennady Golovkin Fight Falls Apart?

If you’re a boxing fan, you’ve mostly come to grips with the love-hate feelings that define your relationship with a sport that too often refuses to give you what you want.

Boxing, after all, is the only sport where the best consistently refuse to face the best for “business” reasons.

It seems that the latest casualty of that phenomenon is a highly demanded middleweight showdown between Canelo Alvarez, boxing’s consensus top draw, and Gennady Golovkin, one of its most exciting fighters.

Canelo, who dispatched blown-up welterweight Amir Khan a couple of weeks ago on HBO pay-per-view, announced via press release Wednesday evening that he would vacate the WBC Middleweight Championship because he “will not be forced into the ring by artificial deadlines.”

He’s referring to the 15-day window from the WBC for the two sides to negotiate a deal before the sanctioning body would have been forced to call a purse bid. That bid likely would have landed Team GGG better terms than they could negotiate and backed Canelo into a corner.

Canelo and his team claim this will remove the “ticking clock” and allow negotiations to continue with the goal of a fight happening soon, but if you believe that those talks will bear much fruit, you’re probably also waiting for the tooth fairy to drop a quarter under your pillow.

Don’t bank on it.

The writing on the wall here might as well be 20 feet high and written in permanent marker.

The WBC immediately confirmed Golovkin as its full middleweight champion:

He's now three-fourths of the way toward his goal of collecting all of the belts, and the fans are once again left holding the bag for a fight that had no real reason not to happen.

Everything seemed to be aligned.

The WBC has been a reasonable partner throughout the process, and the WBA even agreed to stand down and allow negotiations instead of enforce Golovkin’s mandatory defense against regular champion Daniel Jacobs.

The cinnamon-haired star said all the right things after he nearly decapitated Khan.

He called Golovkin into the ring and dropped this post-fight gem on the PPV broadcast, per Bill Tibbs of Undisputed Champion Network (warning: NFSW language in link): “Like we say in Mexico, ‘We don’t f--k around.’ I don’t fear anyone; we don’t come to play in this sport. I fear no one in this sport. Right now, I will put on the gloves again and fight him [Golovkin].”

Canelo also seemed to remove what was expected to be a significant stumbling block in negotiations at the post-fight presser.

“For me, there are no issues,” Canelo said, per Bob Velin of USA Today. “I’ll fight at 160 pounds, no problem.”

A lot of fighters throw out false bravado even when the fans can detect they’re being sold an empty box. Talk is cheap and all that jazz.

Canelo didn’t look like one of those fighters, though. He’s consistently walked the walk after talking the talk by taking on tough challengers, often when there were paths of least resistance available.

Christian Petersen/Getty Images

His promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, spent a career building up a resume that contains a virtual who’s who of big-name fighters during his era and the eras bookending it.

De La Hoya’s official Twitter page profile has the words “Best vs. Best” right out there for the world to see, and yet, here we are (or will be shortly) dissecting the pieces and putting together the profile of another big fight that won’t happen when the fans want it.

The blame shouldn’t be easy to divvy up here.

Canelo has no dog in him. He is a fighter and a warrior.

He says he wants GGG, and we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt since he fought Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara (two nightmare fights for his style) when he didn’t need to go near them.

De La Hoya, on the other hand...well, you can see why he would be reluctant.

Golden Boy Promotions lost virtually all of its big names in a settlement with former CEO Richard Schaefer last year. One of the lone holdouts was Canelo, who is the company’s biggest financial draw and has become the cornerstone of the brand.

Harry How/Getty Images

Should Golden Boy risk that cornerstone in a fight where he’ll enter as a significant underdog with a good chance of being reduced to rubble? De La Hoya doesn't seem to think so. It wouldn’t help Canelo's marketing strategy as boxing’s biggest star if Golovkin drops him. 

Come to think of it, this probably isn’t the best way to sell that point to the fans either.

When Golovkin tells your fighter to “just give me my belt,” which he did on the HBO broadcast following his second-round blowout of Dominic Wade, and two weeks after Canelo pounded his chest and promised the fight, he does just that, then maybe you need a new strategy.

Kevin McRae is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. You can follow him on Twitter @McRaeWrites. Unless otherwise noted quotes were obtained firsthand.