Saul “Canelo” Alvarez loves British fighters. They just keep falling at his feet. When Liam Smith became the fourth fighter from these islands to feel the heat of the Mexican’s power in Texas on Saturday night – joining Matthew Hatton, Ryan Rhodes and Amir Khan – we were reminded that this is a very special champion.
But it’s about time he picked on someone his own size. Like Gennady Golovkin. The unbeaten and probably unbeatable Kazakh – who destroyed Kell Brook in five cracking rounds in London the previous weekend – is the one opponent fans want to see ?lvarez share a ring with. It has to happen.
But that’s what we said for five years about Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. By the time they got in the ring, the thrill had gone.
It was the richest and probably most disappointing mega-fight in the sport’s history – and nobody wants to see a repeat of that. But Golovkin is 34. At some point his skills will start to fade, the reflexes will slow and his disregard for oncoming artillery will cost him. For now, however, he is the best fighter in boxing.
Alvarez (or, rather, his management), has been dragging his feet in protracted and tedious talks with Golovkin’s people, whatever the force of his translated declaration on Saturday night: “I fear no man.”
What the Alvarez camp fear is their fighter giving away weight to Golovkin, a natural middleweight (although not a giant), as well as money and home
advantage.
The last two conditions are understandable; what fighter doesn’t want to maximise his earning power, or have the support of home fans? But the first is wholly avoidable.
One of the daft trends of modern boxing has been the manipulation of weight classes. They are just starting points for negotiations now, as champions and challengers go up and down to suit whoever has more clout with the promoters and broadcasters.
Khan jumped two weights to fight Alvarez; Brook went from welter to middle to fight Golovkin; Smith surrendered his WBO light-middleweight title to Alvarez, who is big at the weight and really ought to be operating at 160lbs.
But that is Golovkin’s territory. He beasts anyone at or around 11st 7lb – yet he has said in the past he is willing to compromise. He wanted to fight Mayweather at light-middle, where the great man briefly ruled, but Floyd wasn’t having it. Why, we can only speculate. Was it money or fear of losing his precious “0”?
What a fight that would have been, because they really were the two best in the game. Now the best of the best is Golovkin, with Alvarez only a jab or a hook behind him. Whatever weight they choose, it has to happen.
Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren don’t agree on much. But they surely are united in their frustration with Chris Eubank and
his son.
Rarely in recent times can a British boxer have had such haywire advice from his father as Junior. He had his pen poised over a contract to fight Golovkin, and somehow “English” talked him out of it. So, up stepped Brook, and Matchroom were happy enough with that, although Hearn admitted that dealing with the Eubanks was hardly worth the effort.
When Brook’s trainer, Dominic Ingle, rightly threw in the towel to save his fighter from further unnecessary damage to his fractured eye socket, Eubank, who should have been in there himself, responded by saying, “We don’t own towels.”
Hearn described it as, “possibly the most ignorant comment I have ever read on social media”. There was better to come.
At the weekend, Junior pulled out of his upcoming British middleweight title defence against Tommy Langford, citing a “severe” elbow injury suffered while sparring an unnamed 14-stone opponent.
In an eccentric press release, his team announced: “The relinquishing of the British championship due to injury sustained in a sparring session is perhaps a blessing in disguise. Chris Eubank Jr’s management team will use the injury as an opportunity to step aside and fight high-calibre world competition.”
There was the further inference that he was saving Langford from a beating, the sort he gave Nick Blackwell, forcing him into retirement. He was, in effect, doing Langford a favour – which the proud challenger properly took as an insult.
This time it was Warren’s turn to fume. “Although we are disappointed by the Eubank statement, we are not surprised, as the public know full well for themselves, they make a habit of talking up fights but not following through,” said his office.
 “They are also incredibly unpredictable, unprofessional and very difficult to work with. We feel most for Tommy, who has been waiting patiently for his shot at the Lonsdale belt.”
Langford will get his title shot, and Eubank will move on … to who knows where? He is a terrific fighter, with bags of attitude and good power, although he is not the pure boxer his father reckons.
He should be challenging for big titles, at home or abroad. Instead, he is nursing an injury he probably should have avoided; quite why he needed to be trading with someone two and a half stone above his division is a mystery.
There was an American sitcom in the 50s called Father Knows Best. It was not about boxing.

Canelo Alvarez celebrates after knocking out Liam Smith during the WBO Junior Middleweight World fight at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. (Getty Images/AFP)