Lou DiBella stands behind Patrick Hyland at a recent press conference. Photo by: Stephanie Trapp/Showtime.

Canelo Alvarez’s decision to put off a fight with Gennady Golovkin until the fall of 2017 was mocked at Thursday’s final press conference for Keith Thurman’s welterweight title defense against Shawn Porter at Barclays Center (CBS 9 p.m. ET).

Promoter Lou DiBella described a plan to unify all the welterweight titles with the help of other promoters “before the fall of 2017,” a not-so-subtle poke at Golden Boy’s forward-thinking plan for Canelo. While not mentioning either Canelo or Golden Boy chief Oscar De La Hoya by name, DiBella nonetheless took the occasion to have a little fun at their expense, leaving little mystery as to who or what he was referring to.

“People can make pronouncements about a year and half or two years from now,” DiBella later told RingTV.com following the press conference. “But we’re starting something important this Saturday night. So we’re not making any press releases. We’re not trying to create breaking news,” he said, apparently mocking Golden Boy’s penchant for press releases to make announcements, and for the way in which news of Canelo’s 2017 plan was leaked on Wednesday. “But what we’re telling you is that over the course of the next 12 to 16 months, our goal and the goal of all the fighters we work with and it’s shared by the promoters we’ve spoken to out there — is to create a unified welterweight champion and determine who is the best in the world,” DiBella said.

Earlier on stage, he quipped, “In the last day or so you’ve gotten to read on the internet about big fights that are going to happen sometime in 2017 — 18 months from now. Well, this Saturday night, the best is fighting the best.”

A spokesman for Golden Boy responded by ripping DiBella and the PBC for poor matchups and ratings. “As the ratings for poor Lou’s fights continue to fall off a cliff, I guess he is hoping the mere mention of Canelo’s or Oscar’s name will help sell a few tickets or encourage some people to turn on the tube,” the spokesman, Stefan Friedman, said in an email to RingTV.com. “Instead, he should try to actually put on some decent fights, promote them and mind his own business.”

DiBella took issue with Friedman’s response, characterizing it as unnecessarily harsh. “Never at any point did I mention Oscar or Canelo by name,” DiBella told RingTV.com. “I think his response is comical. I never referenced their names or their company. I stand behind every word I said. I can’t fathom why they took offense to anything I said. I really have no idea how they could render a personal attack.”

DiBella seemed to be putting his own plan to unify the belts up against Golden Boy’s plan to eventually face Golovkin. He said he had contacted the promoters and fighters of all the welterweight titleholders, and all were on board to try to unify the titles by next year.

Friedman went on to say that DiBella’s timeline for a welterweight unification seems to coincide with Canelo’s for when he will fight Golovkin. “As an aside, since Lou tells anyone who will listen that he went to Harvard, he should know that 16 months to unify the welterweight division would put this alleged unification in the fall of 2017 — exactly when Canelo will unify the middleweight championship,” Friedman said.

Showtime boxing chief Stephen Espinoza seemed eager to follow through with DiBella’s plan to consolidate the belts in the division. DiBella explained on stage he has already contacted the promoters for both Jessie Vargas and Kell Brook — who are finalizing details to meet in a welterweight unification fight for the IBF and WBO titles — and that interest is high in unifying the title. DiBella also reached out to Errol Spence, who could soon be the mandatory for the IBF title if he gets by Leonard Bundu on Aug. 21. The same goes for Danny Garcia, holder of the WBC belt. All have interest in unifying, he said.

There are the obvious political hurdles to deal with. Arum promotes Vargas and doesn’t usually do business with Showtime and Al Haymon. However, Arum and Haymon recently settled a $100 million anti-trust lawsuit last month, and Arum has spoken with Haymon about possibly doing business together in the future. Of course, if Brook beats Vargas, the issue of dealing with Arum becomes moot. With the exception of Brook, Haymon controls the rest of the immediate players at welterweight in Spence, Garcia, Thurman and Porter that would make a so-called unification tournament a reality.

“It’s one thing that we’ve tried to do by focusing on divisions,” Espinoza told RingTV.com. “The super middleweights and welterweights in particular, with Brook and Vargas fighting fairly soon in the fall and those guys saying the door is open to big fights down the road — I don’t think there’s any reason why we couldn’t really have an undisputed welterweight champion fairly soon. I think when you have motivated fighters who want to unify, there shouldn’t be a problem making it happen.”

Mitch Abramson is a former reporter for the New York Daily News and can be reached on Twitter at:@Mabramson13.

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