De La Hoya: I made Canelo-GGG to help the sport

De La Hoya: I made Canelo-GGG to help the sport

De La Hoya: I made Canelo-GGG to help the sport

De La Hoya: I made Canelo-GGG to help the sport

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Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya says he made the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Gennady “GGG” Golovkin fight because he cares about the boxing fans and he wanted to help the sport. De La Hoya maintains that he could have made 4 smaller fights for Canelo without risk, but he wanted to give the fans what they’ve been asking for.

Some boxing fans believe otherwise. They think that De La Hoya decided to make the Canelo-Golovkin right now because of Golovkin not looking exceptional in his last two fights against Kell Brook and Danny Jacobs. They see De La Hoya as worried that if he didn’t make the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight right now, he might lose the fight altogether if Golovkin were to suffer a defeat. Golovkin and his promoters at K2 Promotions wouldn’t take a bunch of easy fights like the ones Canelo has been mostly doing lately with him facing Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Liam Smith, Amir Khan and James Kirkland in his last 4 fights.

Assuming that Golovkin had taken those same fights consecutively, he’d be looking invincible right now. Golovkin has faced 2 good fighters in Brook and Jacobs. People make a big deal about Brook being a welterweight, but he’s a guy that drains down from the 170s to fight at 147. Brook is basically a junior middleweight that fights at welterweight.

“I made this Canelo fight with Golovkin for the sport, for the fans,” said De La Hoya to ESPN.com. ”Yes, there’s a lot of money in this fight but I could have made four smaller fights with Canelo that are not as risky as the Golovkin fight. But I was a fighter myself. I understand what the fans want and therefore I made it happen.”

De La Hoya’s reasoning for making the Canelo-Golovkin fight could be seen as self-serving, because it’s a fight that he believes will make a lot of money and likely will. It’s also one that De La Hoya has confidence that the 26-year-old Canelo can win at this point in his career. But I think another reason that De La Hoya is making the fight for Canelo is because he’s failed to become a crossover star the way that he, Miguel Cotto, Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. all did. How do you become a crossover star?

Here are the ways for a fighter like Canelo to become a crossover star:

– Learn to speak English. You can argue that it helps if you speak English, which Canelo has been slow in learning. When the fighters can speak directly to the U.S fans in English without an interpreter, I believe that helps them connect with the foreign fighters. Golovkin has picked up the language much faster than Canelo despite getting a later start.

– Fight the best opposition possible as frequently as possible. That means Canelo needs to stop fighting mismatches against guys that are made to order for him, and instead fight the likes of Golovkin, Jermall Charlo, Daniel Jacobs, Billy Joe Saunders, Demetrius Andrade, Jermell Charlo, Erislandy Lara, Callum Smith, George Groves, James DeGale, Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev. I mixed in some junior middleweights, super middleweights and light heavyweights, because I believe that Canelo will need to be open to fighting guys from different divisions if he wants to become a true superstar. If all Canelo is going to do is fight the only highly talented middleweights [Golovkin, Jermall Charlo and Daniel Jacobs], then he’ll quickly run though those three fighters and then have no one else to fight other obscure contenders. Golovkin isn’t going to become a crossover star unless he fights a lot of the best fighters from the 154, 160 and 168 pound divisions. Canelo is popular enough to try and get Kovalev and Ward to 

ight him at super middleweight.