CANELO ALVAREZ knew he had the Gennady Golovkin fight. He just had to get past Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Alvarez was not distracted but the super-fight looming ahead of him, taking care of Chavez Jr with few problems.
“Do you really think I looked like I lost focus?” he shrugged afterwards. “I consider myself a person of mental strength and I knew I had focus. First things first I had to win this fight before I could think of anything else.”
Now Golovkin is booked in for September 16. “Everybody wants this fight,” the Kazakh said.
It will be tremendous to see. Promoter Oscar De La Hoya likened it to Mayweather-Pacquiao, only this super-fight would live up to expectations. “We obviously wish for the better man to win. We have too great warriors, this is the most anticipated fight right next to Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather but the difference is this fight is going to have a lot of action, non-stop action and therefore we’re calling this fight ‘Bombs Away.’”
Tom Loeffler, the promoter of Golovkin, hailed getting the deal over the line. “This fight was a long time in the making. I’ve been talking to Eric Gomez and Oscar De La Hoya about putting this fight together. They stayed true to their word. They always said, even last year, we’d make this fight for September 2017 and we are making the announcement. There couldn’t be a bigger announcement in the sport of boxing. It wasn’t easy making the fight, it was even harder not announcing the fight,” he said. “Because we didn’t know what would happen in the fight [Saturday]. We want to give our respects and congratulations to Canelo and his team. He fought a tremendous fight, shut out the fight against Chavez Jr. It’s a tremendous performance, I want to congratulate him and we look forward to working with Golden Boy and Team Canelo for a tremendous promotion in September.”
De La Hoya said his man was always going to accept the challenge: “The man who is willing to face all comers, and willing to be great, that is Canelo Alvarez.”
“It will be a great fight. I’ve said in the past this will be the kind of fight you could do two or three times. I believe that even more after we saw him against Chavez,” Golovkin’s trainer, Abel Sanchez added. “I think Canelo displayed great boxing skills, great combinations.”
Alvarez was more sparing with his estimation of Golovkin’s last fight, a close decision win over Danny Jacobs. “All I can say is it was a difficult fight for both of them,” Canelo said. “I’ve just got to get ready for what’s next, what’s coming.”
