It’s expected to happen, but Golovkin won’t mention Canelo

In discussing why he’s taking a Saturday replacement bout, Gennady Golovkin made it clear what he feels about Canelo Alvarez — by not once mentioning his name.

“I wanted to remain active and I wanted to keep a fight that was scheduled. It was not my fault the first opponent could not fight,” Golovkin said.

The unbeaten Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 knockouts) was due to fight Alvarez on Saturday before the popular Mexican champion was suspended for six months following two positive tests for a performance-enhancing substance.

Now, as Golovkin moves to an HBO-televised Cinco de Mayo match against Glendale’s Vanes Martirosyan at StubHub Center, the most pressing question isn’t about who’ll win but whether the vitriol between Golovkin and Alvarez will prevent the pair from meet-

ing in September.

“For the fight that didn’t happen, we made a lot of concessions, more concessions than the other side,” Golovkin said. “No one in history has made as many concessions.”

Does that mean an entirely restructured contract needs to be negotiated to satisfy Golovkin now that the purse to fight Martirosyan will be less than $3 million? The purse for this weekend’s planned rematch with Alvarez following their September draw was supposed to exceed $20 million.

“It makes no sense to talk about it now,” Golovkin said.

Although Alvarez returned to Los Angeles on Wednesday to confer with his promoter Oscar De La Hoya, he has maintained a low profile since the Nevada Athletic Commission suspended him last month.

Alvarez, undoubtedly, is chafed by Golovkin’s accusations that the banned Clenbuterol found in the former champion’s system was the result of something far more sinister than from eating contaminated beef, which Alvarez claims.

The Golovkin camp inflamed the situation by participating in a commercial shoot that showed Golovkin’s trainer, Abel Sanchez, eating a steak while saying his fighter’s success has been the result of pure, hard work at his Big Bear training camp.

“Because they’re both [angry] and their egos are at play, the fight can be made easier than people think,” Sanchez said. “Canelo seems to think he can knock Gennady out, and Gennady definitely wants to knock him out too, because the fact that this fight is now off makes Gennady upset.

“So, at this moment, this fight is more easily done. They’re mad, they both want to get at each other. I’ve been talking at Canelo, we’re making fun of him, and I’m sure that makes him very upset.”

The most encouraging fact pointing to a Mexican Independence weekend rematch in mid-September is that Golovkin’s promoter, Tom Loeffler, said he’s in daily contact with De La Hoya’s partner, Golden Boy Promotions President Eric Gomez.

“Obviously, Canelo is going to fight in September and the priority is to make Canelo-[Golovkin] for everyone involved,” De La Hoya said Wednesday. “The negotiations will not take place with the media.”

Loeffler will need to address both the concessions Golovkin feels he made for the May 5 fight and his fighter’s desire to be compensated for the canceled rematch.

Not only does Golovkin, 36, miss the richest purse of his career, he has been told by the International Boxing Federation that it won’t sanction the Martirosyan bout and could potentially strip him of the belt for not fighting mandatory opponent Sergiy Derevyanchenko by Aug. 3.

Fighting Derevyanchenko by August, agreed Loeffler and Sanchez, is not possible.

Will Alvarez, De La Hoya and Gomez bend in the negotiations with Loeffler and Golovkin?

Though Alvarez (and Golovkin) have options in a deeper middleweight division — including World Boxing Organization champion Billy Joe Saunders and HBO fighter and former World Boxing Assn. secondary champion Daniel Jacobs — no one else can match the 1.3-million pay-per-view buys and $27-million live gate that they generated in their September bout.

“The reason I think it’ll happen is because they both need each other,” Loeff ler said. “When Canelo fought Liam Smith [in 2016], they didn’t do great pay-per-view numbers [around 300,000 buys] and Gennady never had the [audience] he had with Canelo. It’s the biggest fight for both sides and there’s incentive for both sides to make the fight.”

Members of each fighter’s camp have said there’s a possibility that they each are pursuing a December fight, so if the acrimony compromises the negotiations, perhaps the rematch could happen then.

Golovkin is reluctant to address the what-ifs, Loeffler said, because the rematch is “the biggest fight in the sport of boxing, and if he’s 95% focused and has a misstep Saturday against a very hungry, frustrated fighter who hasn’t fought in two years and has a huge opportunity, this is all empty speculation.”

But when told De La Hoya said Golovkin “still needs to win Saturday,” Golovkin flashed a confident grin. A triumph ties Bernard Hopkins’ record for 20 consecutive middleweight title bouts without a loss.

“I want to remind you that for eight years I’ve been a champion,” Golovkin said. “There’s a lot of talk around me, but if one pays attention to all the talk and rumors — the negative — you won’t last long.

“I remain myself.”