De La Hoya names Canelo’s 4 potential opponents for next fight in September

By Aragon Garcia

Fresh off of his masterful 12 round unanimous decision victory over IBF middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs (35-3, 29 KOs) last Saturday night, WBA/WBC 160-pound champion Saul Canelo Alvarez (52-1-2, 35 KOs) and his team are looking ahead for his next fight in September on DAZN.

Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya named off four possible opponents at the post-fight news conference last Saturday night that he and his team will be deciding on. They haven’t made up their mind as of yet, but they’ve got four good candidates that will be hard for them to move passed.

Speaking to the media last Saturday night, De La Hoya named these four fighters as Canelo’s potential opponents for his September fight on DAZN:

– Gennady Golovkin: A good option for Canelo to please DAZN to help bring in the subscribers for September

– Demetrius Andrade: This isn’t a good risk for Canelo and Golden Boy, because Andrade has a fight on June 29th against Maciej Sulecki.

– Callum Smith: This will be a good fight for Canelo. Smith is said to be fighting former WBA middleweight champion Hassan N’Dam next month on June 1st on the undercard of Anthony Joshua vs. Andy Ruiz Jr. on DAZN at Madison Square Garden in New York. As long as Callum gets through that fight without suffering a loss or an injury, then he would be a good option to fight Canelo in September

– Sergey Kovalev: This is the toughest of the four, but also the one that is least likely to face Canelo in September. Kovalev 6’0”, is a big fighter with a lot power, and boxing ability. He might be too big for Canelo to deal with. Even with truly gifted fighters like Canelo, there’s a point where you bite off more than you can chew. Kovalev might be a little too big and strong for Canelo. If Golden Boy Promotions can get Kovalev to agree to a fight date rehydration limit for the morning of the fight, Canelo might have a chance of beating him, but other than that, he’s probably going to be too small to win this fight. Canelo will try and take the fight to the inside the way that Andre Ward did in his two wins over Kovalev. That won’t be easy for him to do now that he’s trained by Buddy McGirt, who has Kovalev boxing more at range, and slugging much less than he did in the past.

Golovkin (38-1-1, 34 KOs) is an obvious choice for Canelo to face in September. A lot of boxing fans still want to see Canelo and Triple G mix it up for a third time despite the controversy that marred the results of their past encounters. The third fight could close out their rivalry if Canelo wins conclusively. That would make it final. There would be no point in the two fighters to face each other again after that. Canelo doesn’t feel like there’s any need for him to fight GGG a third time, but he’ll do it if the boxing public wants to see it badly enough. If not, then Canelo would prefer to fight WBO middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade in a unification or go up to 168 to unify against Callum Smith, the WBA Super World belt holder.

“Jacobs is an amazing competitor,” De La Hoya said at the post-fight news conference last Saturday. “I had Canelo winning by two points. Jacobs is a warrior. Canelo has many options. There’s no one he doesn’t want to face, but he has many options. That’s the wonderful thing about being the man in the sport of boxing, as everyone wants to fight him, whether it’s at 175, whether it’s at 160 or 168. He has many challengers. He never shies away from any challenge. Golovkin was knocking on Canelo’s door. He was right here knocking on his door. Demetrius Andrade was right here knocking on his door. [Callum] Smith is knocking on his door, and [Sergey] Kovalev is knocking on his door. We want to create the right scenario. Look, first things first. He has to rest up, and then we’ll huddle up and make a decision as a team. One thing about Canelo, he never shies away from a challenge. I feel Canelo is doing an excellent job. Who fights GGG [twice], and then fights Jacobs back to back to back. His defense was a huge factor. I loved the way Canelo moved his head in all these punches in bunches Jacobs was throwing. His combinations were lightning fast. Canelo was able to dodge them, bob-n-weave. I would never take anything away from Jacobs,” De La Hoya said.

Canelo already ruled out Andrade for his next fight, because he’s fighting in late June against Maciej Sulecki. Andrade won’t be able to come back that soon.

Sergey Kovalev (33-3-1, 28 KOs) will be defending against his #1 WBO mandatory challenger Anthony Yarde this summer, so he’s not going to be able to face Canelo until 2020 unless he fights in December.

Jacobs lost out on any chance for him to get a rematch against Canelo by failing to put out any effort to win the fight. De La Hoya was taking the high road at the post-fight news conference by complimenting Jacobs for putting in a good effort against Alvarez, 28, but that’s not the general consensus felt by the boxing public. They saw Jacobs just going through the motions looking to get a paycheck and not willing to risk getting knocked out. It was a poor effort from Jacobs, who hurt his career with this performance. You have to wonder what DAZN is thinking after seeing that non-effort from Jacobs. He didn’t look good in his past four fights going into the Canelo match. Jacobs had looked lackuster against Sergiy Derevyanchenko, Maciej Sulecki, Golovkin and Luis Arias. The last time Jacobs looked really impressive was three years ago against Sergio Mora in their rematch in September 2016. Jacobs stopped Mora in the seventh round.

“I got the short end of the stick,” said Jacobs.

It’s too bad Jacobs couldn’t just give Canelo credit for the win, and left it at that. It’s a bad look for Jacobs to be complaining every time he loses. He complained that he wasn’t knocked out against Dmitry Pirog in 2010, and then told the boxing media that he should have been given the win in his fight against Golovkin in 2017. Jacobs is now doing the same thing after his loss to Canelo. At what point does Jacobs just admit that he was beaten by the better man?

With the win over “The Miracle Man” Jacobs, Canelo collected a nice payday of $35 million. That’s excellent money Canelo.