Canelo Alvarez could fight again on Dec. 15

Middleweight titleholder Canelo Alvarez could be set for a relatively quick return with his promoter eyeing a December 15th fight, according to an ESPN report. Alvarez suffered a cut in his latest battle against Gennady Golovkin, and a lot will depend on how that heals, but if he is able to make that turnaround it’ll be a PPV event in either Las Vegas or Madison Square Garden in New York.

Golden Boy promoter Oscar De La Hoya says he doesn’t have a specific opponent in mind at this point, but says that David Lemieux and even Jermall Charlo are possibilities. But what might influence the ultimate decision is the network Canelo aligns himself with for the prospective fight date.

De La Hoya strongly contends that Canelo’s contract with HBO expired in this last outing with Golovkin — something HBO disputes — but says he’ll give the network the first and last chance to make Canelo the best offer. De La Hoya is interested in seeing how much HBO really wants to commit to boxing programming after they’ve scaled back quite a bit in the past couple of years following their corporate merger with AT&T.

“I strongly feel HBO is going to be more committed [to boxing] than ever. Now with AT&T and the merger, we had AT&T people at the fight for a reason. Never count out the 800-pound gorilla,” De La Hoya said. “Maybe they’ve been on hiatus for a bit, but it’s understandable. They’ve been going through this merger and there are changes. So it’s understandable. We’ve been patient. We’ve had other outlets to turn to where we can stay above water and keep our fighters active like with our fights on Facebook and ESPN. So we’re managing. HBO is our family and they’re always going to have first and last, and they’ve always been good to us.”

Of course with that being said, De La Hoya isn’t completely tied to the HBO network and his job is to get Canelo the best possible deal, meaning potential deals with DAZN, Showtime, or ESPN could all be in play.