Though Gennady Golovkin won the interim WBC middleweight championship to go with his WBA title last weekend on HBO (Highlights), and thus a mandatory shot at full WBC titleholder and lineal champion Miguel Cotto, the WBC itself is not going to rush into ordering the mandatory title fight, with Cotto likely having about a year before it will come up.
Cotto (39-4, 32 KO) will be allowed a voluntary title defense -- or perhaps a voluntary non-title fight -- before the WBC will worry about Golovkin (31-0, 28 KO) and his mandatory claim. There are reportedly ongoing talks for Cotto to face Canelo Alvarez in May, which would mean that September or October of next year would be the first period of time we'd be theoretically likely to see Cotto-Golovkin.
If Cotto were to lose his WBC and lineal middleweights to Alvarez, though, Golovkin could find himself in a sticky situation, too. On the one hand, Canelo has proven willing to face anyone out there. If there's a "toughest fight" for him that fans are talking about, Alvarez has a habit of taking it. He did it against Austin Trout, Floyd Mayweather, and Erislandy Lara. That track record speaks for itself. Alvarez doesn't duck fights, and there's no good reason to suspect that if he were WBC middleweight champ, he'd duck Golovkin's challenge.
On the other hand, if he wanted to stall it out, he'd probably be given the chance to do that. The WBC has a history of showing favoritism to guys who make money -- or to Marco Antonio Rubio, for some reason -- and Canelo is a money maker. It's not even so much that it would be underhanded, either. It's easy to envision a scenario where Canelo beats Cotto, asks for a voluntary defense, and comes to an agreement with Golovkin and his team on doing just that.
As for Golovkin, he has a WBA mandatory due in February, and talks are underway for him to fight in Europe again, possibly in Monte Carlo where he takes a yearly vacation to smash some hapless non-contender in between sightseeing.
The WBA's top 15 contenders coming into October were Dmitry Chudinov, Peter Quillin, Willie Monroe Jr, Arif Magomedov, Rubio, Andy Lee, Patrick Nielsen, Jarrod Fletcher, Daniel Geale, Matthew Macklin, Hassan N'dam, Billy Joe Saunders, Jorge Cota, Sergio Mora, and David Lemieux. Notably absent from that list is Martin Murray, who fights in Monte Carlo this Saturday and is now promoted by South Africa's Golden Gloves, the promoter that puts on the Monaco bills that have become regular in recent years.