Canelo Alvarez planning HBO fight on December 10

Canelo Alvarez has his next fight set, an HBO pay-per-view main event on September 17 against WBO junior middleweight titleholder Liam Smith, in a matchup that doesn’t have many fans excited, and has some openly angry, not just at what is perceived as a poor matchup, but that it will be another expensive pay-per-view.

But Alvarez, 25, is planning to fight again on December 10, according to ESPN.com, and that fight would be on regular HBO. No opponents have been discussed, but Dan Rafael says the plan is for Alvarez to carefully work his way up to 160 pounds, which is at least a good sign for his possible September 2017 fight with Gennady Golovkin, even though a million other things could shut that down in the next 14 months.

Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KO) last fought on May 7, knocking out Amir Khan in the sixth round in what was also a heavily criticized pay-per-view event. There’s a pretty good chance, it would seem, that Canelo Alvarez is going to fight three times in 2016, and probably not have the caliber of opponent you would want to see of a top fighter.