Canelo Alvarez already looking up to 160lbs and Gennady Golovkin

Canelo Alvarez

LETโ€™S get one thing straight, Liverpoolโ€™s Liam Smith is being absolutely no chance of beating Canelo Alvarez on Saturday โ€“ particularly by the American press. Before todayโ€™s final press conference at the grand AT&T Stadium, the media huddled around Alvarez and bombarded the Mexican with questions about Gennady Golovkin.

It was hoped that Alvarez would engage in a unification showdown with the Kazak after he knocked out Amir Khan in May, with his promoter Oscar De La Hoya promising to open negotiations immediately. They didnโ€™t go very far, and within weeks, Alvarez relinquished the WBC middleweight title as the sanctioning body pushed for the fight to be made. Now, he returns to super-welterweight, a division he hasnโ€™t campaigned in for three years, and takes on the confident and carefree Smith.

Alvarez, two days before challenging the Englishman, insists Golovkin is still a target.

โ€œAny day, any time. When the negotiations are done and the fight is done, I will be ready. They [Golovkinโ€™s camp] need to worry about it not me.โ€

Yesterday, Alvarezโ€™s team insisted โ€“ quite rightly โ€“ that it was disrespectful to talk about Golovkin so close to the fight with Smith. But the fighter bristled under questioning today, no doubt tired of being accused of ducking โ€œGGGโ€. The 26-year-old insisted he would have no worries about rising to 160lbs for the showdown, despite never weighing above his favoured catchweight of 155lbs.

โ€œIโ€™m not worried at all about going to 160lb,” Canelo said. “Iโ€™m a strong fighter, Iโ€™m a fighter who can adapt to my surroundings. I canโ€™t tell you now what I will be like at 160 as I donโ€™t know yet. We will see in a couple more fights in how I feel and look. We will see what comes.โ€

There have been suggestions that Canelo is struggling to make 154lbs, and he certainly had the look of a fighter locked in a gruelling battle with the scales. Unsurprisingly, Alvarez rejected claims that he is struggling to lose mass.

โ€œEvery fighter goes through cutting the weight and there will be no issues,โ€ he said matter of factly.

When asked about the possibility of a Golovkin-Canelo showdown, De La Hoya added: โ€œPeople have been asking for that fight for over a year now. People were asking for [Manny] Pacquiao versus Floyd Mayweather for eight years. This fight will happen next year and when we are ready, we will do it. Canelo is fighting at 154 , Golovkin at 160. When Canelo is ready for that weight we will make it happen.โ€

Incidentally, the possibility of a Golovkin-Smith showdown wasnโ€™t mentioned once.

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