Photo by Naoki Fukuda

The RING/WBC middleweight champion, Cotto (39-4, 32 knockouts) of Puerto Rico has been in talks for a May 2 title defense on HBO Pay-Per-View against Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs), a Mexican star who is the RING’s No. 1-rated junior middleweight behind RING champion Floyd Mayweather Jr.

“Canelo still wants to fight in May, so he’s going to fight in May,” said Golden Boy Promotions President Oscar De La Hoya during a Tuesday interview with RingTV.com.

“Against who? We’re going to start working on that. We’re going to start working on getting him the perfect guy to make that a huge event on that weekend.”

Cotto, 34, was last in the ring in June for his 10th-round technical knockout of Sergio Martinez, earning THE RING and WBC championships.

Alvarez, 24, was coming off a split-decision victory over Erislandy Lara in July when a chronic ankle injury forced the cancelation of his planned Dec. 6 bout against former welterweight titleholder Joshua Clottey.

“I hear that Cotto is having issues with Canelo and then, I hear that Floyd was talking about fighting Cotto but I don’t know,” said Loeffler. “So to make it interesting, if there are problems with making the fight between Canelo and Cotto, that Gennady would fight either one of them.”

Cotto’s trainer, Freddie Roach has said of Golovkin, “I think Miguel Cotto will kick his ass,” to which Golovkin’s trainer, Abel Sanchez responded that Cotto “couldn’t go five rounds” against Golovkin.

“There’s really no one at 160 pounds who could go the distance with Gennady,” said Loeffler. “A lot of the other guys are great boxers but the public wants knockouts and that’s what separates Gennady from a lot of other fighters.”

Loeffler said that Golovkin would have no problem fighting at a catchweight against Alvarez, who fought Lara in a 155-pound bout.

“We’ve always said that if there is a compelling fight, Gennady would move up or down, we’ve talked about moving up to 168 for Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. because that would be a pay-per-view fight and if it’s Canelo, then I’m sure that we could work out a catchweight if he wanted to work out a catchweight and if it’s in his best interest. So that would certainly be a pay-per-view fight,” said Loeffler.

“There wouldn’t be any issues for us to come down to fight Canelo. There would still be a title on the line for Gennady because he would be fighting under 160, so he would be able to defend the titles at 156 or whatever you have the weight be. But Gennady would be willing to come down in weight to fight Canelo. I wouldn’t say it would be at 154 but certainly, given that Canelo fought his last fight at 155, then you could say that Gennady would certainly be willing to come down in weight to make the Canelo fight.”

Golovkin is coming off last month’s second-round stoppage of three-time title challenger Marco Antonio Rubio, representing his 18th straight knockout and the 12th defense of his WBA belt. A 32-year-old from Kazakhstan, Golovkin will return to action against Martin Murray on Feb. 21 in Monte Carlo.

“All of the speculation for future fights, that’s all not taking anything away from Martin Murray. I think that Martin Murray is one of the best middleweights in the world. So we’re definitely not overlooking him by any stretch of the imagination,” said Loeffler.

“But I just don’t think that there is anyone in the division who can go 12 rounds with Gennady. It’s always my job to look ahead but now, Abel and Gennady are focused on the fight coming up.”