By Keith Idec

Abel Sanchez has heard this theory many times since March 18.

Gennady Golovkin’s trainer still can’t believe there are people that believe Golovkin intentionally struggled against Daniel Jacobs to convince Canelo Alvarez and his team to finally accept a showdown with him. Sanchez considers that idea disrespectful to Jacobs’ ability and his performance against Golovkin, not to mention that it’s a completely impractical plan to execute without it backfiring against a championship-caliber opponent.

“Absolutely not,” Sanchez said Monday as part of a conference call to promote the Alvarez-Golovkin fight September 16 in Las Vegas. “You never take a chance on losing a fight. By doing something ridiculous like that, you take a chance of the judges seeing it the other way.”

Brooklyn’s Jacobs (32-2, 29 KOs) often fought out of a southpaw stance and troubled Kazakhstan’s Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) with his boxing ability and movement in their 12-round fight nearly five months ago at Madison Square Garden. Golovkin overcame those difficulties to win a unanimous decision (115-112, 115-112, 114-113), but Jacobs snapped his 23-fight knockout streak and exposed some of Golovkin’s vulnerabilities.

Negotiations between Oscar De La Hoya, Alvarez’s promoter, and Tom Loeffler, Golovkin’s promoter, intensified after Jacobs boxed well against the IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC champion. Though thrilled that Golovkin got the fight he had long wanted, Sanchez doesn’t think Golovkin’s struggles against Jacobs were the motivation behind Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs) and his handlers accepting the fight.

“Our fight against Canelo was made because Canelo felt that he was ready, Oscar felt that he was ready and the Reynosos felt he was ready,” Sanchez said, referring to Alvarez’s trainers, “Chepo” and Eddy Reynoso. “But there was no intent on our part, on mine or Golovkin’s part or the team’s part, to look bad. We did what we needed to do against Jacobs to win. Jacobs was a difficult opponent, but by no means did we slack off. We wanted this fight, but we wanted this fight at our best.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.