Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez will fight twice at the end of the year and has 4 opponents to choose from
- Saul "Canelo" Alvarez wants to fight twice in 2020, and is linked with four possible opponents.
- The four-weight boxing champion has supposed to compete against Billy Joe Saunders in May but those plans were canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
- With a boxing calendar beginning to take shape from June onwards, Alvarez will apparently fight in September and then again in December.
- He could fight Billy Joe Saunders, David Benavidez, or Caleb Plant in September, and take a trilogy bout against Gennady Golovkin in December, Alvarez's trainer Eddy Reynoso said.
Saul "Canelo" Alvarez will fight twice at the end of the year, has four opponents to choose from, and could still face his middleweight rival Gennady Golovkin for a trilogy bout.
Alvarez has not fought since November, last year, when he stopped Sergey Kovalev in the 11th round to add the WBO light heavyweight title to his championships won in the super welterweight, middleweight, and super middleweight divisions.
The four-weight world champion was due to return to boxing for the weekend closest to Cinco de Mayo, a key fixture in the combat sports calendar — moreso when you're Mexican.
But the worsening spread of the novel coronavirus led to a widespread shutdown of boxing, and so Alvarez's plan to fight Billy Joe Saunders was never formally announced.
Speaking to Box Azteca, Alvarez's long-time trainer Eddy Renoso said the fighter still intends to box twice in 2020.
"We realistically want two fights this year," Reynoso said, according to Boxing Scene. "We couldn't fight in May, so we are looking at September and December."
Another key fighting fixture is Mexican Independence Day on September 16. The closest weekend to that date this year, Saturday, September 19, could be when Alvarez next hopes to compete.
Saunders, a technically-adept Brit who holds the WBO super middleweight title, is again linked with "Canelo," but could be one of three athletes in contention for the September date.
Alongside Saunders, Alvarez is also looking at the IBF super middleweight champion Caleb Plant, a defensively proficient American boxer, and David Benavidez, a hard-hitting two-time super middleweight champion.
"We're talking about [opponents] like Billy Joe Saunders," Reynoso said. "There's also Caleb Plant and the WBC world titleholder at 168 pounds [David Benavidez]. There are several [options]."
Alvarez's long-time rival Golovkin, who he has drawn and beaten in a two-fight saga so far, will reportedly fight the mandatory challenger to his IBF middleweight title, Kamil Szeremeta, in the coming months.
While Golovkin might not be ready to fight again in September, he could feasibly be ready in December. That is what team Alvarez hope, anyway.
"Golovkin could be the fight for December," Reynoso said. "His people have already said that he doesn't want to fight Canelo until after the [Kamil Szeremeta] fight."
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