Boxing News: WBC mandates winner of Canelo-Cotto to fight Gennady Golovkin in early 2016

World Boxing Council (WBC) president Mauricio Sulaiman mandated the winner of the bout between WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez to face Gennady Golovkin, which could happen early next year. The Canelo-Cotto clash will take place at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas on Nov. 22.

The WBC ordered the winner between Canelo and Cotto to face Golovkin, who recently unified the World Boxing Association, International Boxing Organisation and International Boxing Federation middleweight titles after destroying David Lemieux via eighth-round technical knockout (TKO) in a sold-out Madison Square Garden. The boxing organisation also insisted that they will not allow the Canelo-Cotto winner to skip a mandatory title defence against the undefeated Kazakh.

Sulaiman told the Boxing Scene that a potential fight between Canelo or Cotto against Golovkin would be one of the biggest fights in boxing history, with all fighters competing on top of their form. “The winner of Cotto-Canelo must fight Golovkin,” Sulaiman said. “Canelo and Cotto are at an elite level in boxing, and Golovkin has been demonstrating that he belongs there too.”

Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) has indeed demonstrated that he belongs in the top class of boxing’s middleweight fighters. After his successful pay-per-view debut with HBO, Golovkin has become the favourite to replace retired boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. as the face of the sport.

So far, both camps of Cotto and Canelo have been open in facing Golovkin once the fighters finish their clash in November. Golovkin also does not seem to mind whoever comes at him next as he is eyeing to conquer the middleweight class, with the unification of all belts in that division on top of his to-do list.

"I want all the belts, now I have two,” Golovkin said, reports Yahoo Sports. “[I want] the winner of Cotto-Canelo, for sure.”

Meanwhile, Sulaiman anticipates the bout between Golovkin and Canelo or Cotto to happen in “March or April.” He also said that the likely date would be in May on the lucrative Cinco de Mayo weekend. The WBC had previously required the Golovkin-Lemieux and Canelo-Cotto winners to face each other.

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