CANELO ALVAREZ is close to agreeing a £63million two-bout deal that would see him fight Dmitry Bivol and Gennady Golovkin.
The Mexican superstar is a promotional and network free agent which has sparked a battle to secure his services.
Mystery American boxing mogul Al Haymon had offered a £33m pay-per-view headliner with unbeaten middleweight Jermall Charlo, 31.
But Eddie Hearn, who Canelo has worked with in recent fights, put together a two-part package.
And according to ESPN, the four-weight world champion is braced to accept Hearn’s proposal.
It would see him fight for Bivol, 31, for the Russian’s WBA light-heavyweight title on May 7.
And following that would be a long-awaited trilogy bout with rival Golovkin, 39, eyed for September 17.
Canelo, 31, has only once fought in the 175lb light-heavyweight division, when in November he knocked out Sergey Kovalev, 38, to win the WBO belt.
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But he immediately vacated it to go back down to 168lb, where he would go on to become undisputed super-middleweight champion.
The Kovalev win was also the last fight before Canelo terminated his contract with Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy.
Since then, he has fought three times on DAZN aligned with Hearn, where he would beat Callum Smith, 31, Avni Yildirim, 30, and Billy Joe Saunders, 32.
But for his return in September, he would beat Caleb Plant, 29, with PBC on Fox PPV.
And it looked as though that partnership would stretch for another fight after Canelo’s trainer and manager Eddy Reynoso picked Charlo as his preferred next opponent.
But with the lure of completing his trilogy with GGG alongside DAZN and Hearn, it could have been too good to pass up.
The pair contentiously drew in 2017 before Canelo won the rematch a year later, with both fights selling over 1m PPVs.
Even at Golovkin’s veteran age, a third bout with Alvarez is one of the biggest commercially in the sport.
But it would need the Kazakh, for the first time in his 43-bout career, to move up in weight and fight outside of the middleweight limit.
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk