Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin have agreed to a trilogy fight. The Athletic’s Lance Pugmire was first to report the story on Tuesday morning.

Alvarez, however, wants to face Billy Joe Saunders beforehand. Both fighters were slated to fight May 2 in a super middleweight title fight, but an official announcement was postponed twice due to the coronavirus pandemic.

According to The Athletic, an extended postponement of the Saunders fight could influence both parties to forget about that bout and move directly to the Canelo-Golovkin trilogy, which could go down September 12 at AT&T Stadium in Dallas.

This would be a dagger to the heart of Saunders, who also agreed to face Golovkin in August 2018, only for the Kazakh to abort plans after agreeing to face Alvarez in their second fight.

According to sources reporting to The Ring last week, the initial postponement of the Alvarez-Saunders announcement had nothing to do with the coronavirus, but rather due to negotiations between Canelo and promoter Golden Boy for extra compensation to take a third bout with Golovkin.

Alvarez (53-1-2, 36 knockouts) and Golovkin (40-1-1, 35 KOs) fought to a draw in September 2017 and Canelo won a majority decision in the second bout, later named 2018’s Ring Magazine Fight of the Year.

Pugmire has reported that Alvarez has agreed to face Golovkin at the middleweight limit of 160 pounds, though he would prefer to fight ‘GGG’ at 168 pounds, where he could win a title in a fourth weight class if he were to fight and defeat Saunders.

Golovkin suffered a calf injury while training for his mandatory IBF middleweight title defense against Poland’s Kamil Szeremeta (21-0, 5 KOs), which delayed a planned March return. An early June fight date was being negotiated when the coronavirus wreaked havoc on the sports industry.

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