Canelo Alvarez has confirmed that he will finish his trilogy against Gennady Golovkin before his rematch with Dmitry Bivol.
It was widely expected that Canelo will seek to avenge his loss against the Russian next but he will honor his pact of a fight scheduled for November.
Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin had already agreed to complete their trilogy before the Mexican suffered his upset loss.
Alvarez fought “GGG” to a draw in their first fight in 2017 before defeating him via majority decision a year later.
After winning the second fight, Alvarez went on to unify the super middleweight division ever and vaulted into the top spot on the pound-for-pound ratings.
Both boxers had been building the hype for their final bout in the four years since, with GGG’s fight against Ryota Murata and Alvarez’s against Bivol seemingly being considered tune-ups before they finished their trilogy.
Golovkin, who remained at middleweight, did his part by stopping Ryota Murata in the ninth in an IBF-WBA unification bout.
Bivol was the one who threw a wrench in those plans by defeating Canelo to retain his WBA light heavyweight belt.
“We already had that contract, that deal, so we have to continue what we started,” Alvarez said. “And I think they are the two most important fights in boxing–the fight with Golovkin and the rematch with Bivol because, unfortunately, we lost, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to try again.
“The important thing here is perseverance, and we are going to do it again. … What is certain is that we will return in September, and these days—today, tomorrow, the day after—we are going to announce the fight, only we have to wait a little.”
A third fight makes sense for monetary reasons.
Both of their previous bouts sold more than 1 million pay-per-views with the paid gates being $27 million for the rematch and $24.5 million for the first fight.
