Canelo, Khan and a battle to become the middleweight champion we deserve By Bart Barry- Miguel Cotto vs Canelo Alvarez PPV Weigh-in 11-20-2015 WBC Middleweight Title Miguel Cotto 153.5 vs. Canelo Alvarez 155 photo Credit: WILL HART Saturday Mexican super middleweight Saul “Canelo” Alvarez will defend the lineal middleweight championship of the world, not to be confused with the PBC middleweight championship or the HBO middleweight championship, against Britain’s Amir “King” Khan, currently the WBC’s silver champion of the welterweight division. The match will happen in Las Vegas on pay-per-view, naturally. All the boxes are checked – Face Off, 24/7, Greatest Hits – but interest is wholly wanting. I’ve been ringside for fights enough of Canelo’s to know they’re better in person than via television yet I hadn’t a farthing of an impetus or a modicum of that farthing to travel to see this fight. Amir Khan has never struck me as better than a highlight reel of nationalistic and ethnic special effects. Surely some Brits and lots of Pakistanis feel something like pride when they watch him, but in many more cases, I infer, persons claim to be impressed by Khan because their own box-checking told them to be so: Handsome, well- spoken, fast hands, bilingual, beloved by others. That was certainly Oscar De La Hoya and Richard Schaefer’s calculation way back when. Not too long after Khan – an Olympic silver medalist, have you heard? – got plastercracked by Breidis Prescott in 2008, he won a cynical rehabilitation match against Marco Antonio Barrera 18 months after Barrera resigned his ownership stake in Golden Boy Promotions by retiring, and not long after that Khan began appearing at ringside as Oscar’s guest. After racing through Paulie Malignaggi in the best performance of his career Khan raced away from Marcos Maidana in the expiring moments of their 2010 match – a performance that couldn’t be talked to pretty. The image of Khan in perimeter- hopping flight, eyes wide, tail high, pride low, endures and endures. It’s why many of us cheered for Danny Garcia in 2012, seven months after Khan lost a decision to Lamont Peterson. Garcia uncorked Khan with a left hook that’s aged better than both Garcia and Khan. Then it was back to the rehabilitation circuit for King Khan, a string of decision victories against opponents a prizefighter of Khan’s celebrity should not have needed judges to best. After making Chris Algieri, a small welterweight, look formidable enough to get Algieri recently fed to a PBC prospect, a year ago Khan settled in for a victory hibernation. It took a cashout arrangement for Khan and his advisor – I’m going to cash you out, Amir, because I’m out of cash – to get Khan back in the ring, this time in a match for the lineal middleweight championship of the world Cinnamon Alvarez beat from the waist of Miguel Cotto who won the title from a cripple who decisioned a drunk. Which mightn’t be amusing as it is were it not for the purists now propped high on their hindlegs by dudgeon for Canelo’s refusal to defend this august title above 155 pounds. Gennady “He’ll Fight Anyone Between 154 and 168 Pounds” Golovkin, the reigning, defending and undisputed middleweight champion of HBO, may not have a chance to sue posterity for greatness, his partisans fear, if he cannot accumulate on his record some marquee welterweights or 154-pounders willing to face him at the middleweight limit. Fans are now clamoring for Canelo to fight Golovkin, except they aren’t. HBO is clamoring for Canelo to fight Golovkin for a combination of reasons like: The Golovkin marketing budget is starting to outpace its effect. Most idiots left boxing with Money May, and the aficionados who remain are more interested in great matches than abetting networks’ lame starsystems, which means the HBO middleweight champion will never get back on pay-per-view without either luring Canelo into a match with him or, heaven forbid, moving up in weight and challenging himself. Golovkin won’t move up in weight for the same reason Canelo won’t move up in weight: Why the hell take a risk when there are millions to be made by not taking risks? And before you say “Posterity!” wipe that smirk off your face. Nobody thinks Canelo will beat Golovkin at 160 pounds – so how does anyone expect the disinterested among us to believe there is clamoring for a match whose promotional tagline would be “Ratify Golovkin!”? Canelo knows this, and Canelo knows he is the AAA-side in a match with Golovkin, and he is behaving like it. A question for those who sincerely believe Golovkin’s starching Canelo at 160 pounds is what’s best for our beleaguered sport: Then what? Canelo is off pay-per-view till he can be rehabilitated, and Golovkin has no one to fight with his easy new prestige. Or is the idea actually to harangue the welterweight champion of the world out of retirement? Goodness, stop it. Back to Saturday’s spectacle. The best outcome is Khan, SD-12: A narrow, controversial decision in which Khan outbusies Canelo, who shows massive amounts of frustration for his loyal fans at Khan’s unwillingness to engage in a manly way. Oscar, Canelo’s promoter, can get in the ring afterward and tell us about protesting the decision and hiring investigators and so forth. The WBC – to whom Golovkin’s folks pretend they’ve pinned dreams of fairplay; yet in whose sweatsuit Canelo trains – can order an immediate rematch, and knowing Canelo will win that by prefilled scorecards emulate Hollywood by ordering a sequel to the rematch at the same time they order the rematch, filling Canelo’s calendar until Mexican Independence Day 2017, time enough for him to grow in to a middleweight while Golovkin grows out of one. Some folks will remember Canelo didn’t move up to 160 pounds while Golovkin was still there. Some folks remember Golovkin didn’t move up to 168 while Andre Ward was still there. As we’ve seen, though, that’s nothing some quality agitprop can’t fix. I’ll take Canelo, KO-8, because, who are we kidding, Khan has no chin. Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry.