De La Hoya says Canelo will fight Golovkin in September

By Jeff Aranow: Golden Boy Promotions boss Oscar De La Hoya has confirmed that Saul Canelo Alvarez will be fighting IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) in a rematch on September 15.

De La Hoya says Canelo will not only fight Golovkin, but he’s also going thrash him. De La Hoya thinks Canelo has been given a bum rap over his positive tests for clenbuterol, and he thinks a lot of boxing fans are going to dislike him because of that.

Canelo blames his positive tests on having eaten tainted meat in Mexico. The Nevada Commission suspended him anyway. Unfortunately for Canelo, a lot of boxing fans don’t believe his tainted meat excuse. They think he used clenbuterol to try and gain an edge against Golovkin, and a lot of those same fans think Canelo was using the substance before his first fight with GGG last September.

Canelo is currently under a six-month suspension handed down by the Nevada State Athletic Commission last week on April 18 for his two failed tests in February for clenbuterol. Canelo’s suspension expires in August, so he’ll be ready to fight Golovkin in a rematch on the Mexican Independence Day holiday weekend on September 15.

“To me it’s bulls**t,” De La Hoya said to TMZ.com about Canelo’s two positive tests and his subsequent suspension by the Nevada Commission. “Once they fight in September, I’ll tell you one thing — Canelo’s going to freaking wail on him.”

Canelo wasn’t wailing on Golovkin in their fight last September. Canelo was doing the best he could to stay away from GGG by moving on the outside, and fighting defensively. It wasn’t until the last two rounds of the contest that Canelo started to take the fight to Golovkin. The judges gave Canelo the last three rounds in giving him the 10, 11 and 12. It looked more like Canelo lost the 10th and 11th, but won the 12th. But with the trio of judges that worked the fight, Canelo was given a lot of rounds in which he appeared to lose.

Golovkin wasn’t given much credit for the 3 judges that worked the fight.
De La Hoya hasn’t said where he wants the Canelo-Golovkin II rematch to take place. It’s likely that the rematch will wind up back at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The only way it might not be back in Las Vegas is if Canelo is upset about being suspended by the Nevada Commission.

“Canelo is getting really the short end of the stick here because obviously he’s a popular fighter and a lot of people are going to hate on him,” De La Hoya said.

A great number of the boxing fans think Canelo was using PEDs because they noticed that his physique looked a lot more muscular and defined for the Golovkin fight than it had in any of his previous contests in his career up to that point. Canelo’s physique looked vascular, and he did not look like the same fighter physically compared to the one that had fought Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. just four months earlier in May of 2017. Canelo looked like he had signed up for Charles Atlas course on gaining muscles. His body looked much different than it had before.

“But he’s been one of the cleanest fighters I’ve known. He’s passed numerous of tests, and you know … it was very unfortunate,” De La Hoya said about Canelo.

Golovkin, 36, will be defending his title next against Vanes Martirosyan (36-3-1, 21 KOs) on May 5 on HBO World Championship Boxing at the StubHub Center in Carson, California. Golovkin is a heavy favorite to win the fight. There aren’t many fans giving Martirosyn much of a chance to win.