By Keith Idec

LAS VEGAS – If Abel Sanchez could schedule Gennady Golovkin’s immediate future, he would want Golovkin’s next fight to come against Canelo Alvarez in May.

A third bout between those middleweight rivals obviously is warranted after their extremely competitive rematch Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena. Whether that happens, of course, will be up to Alvarez and his handlers at Golden Boy Promotions now that he has beaten Golovkin by majority decision.

Alvarez instead could fight Montreal’s David Lemieux (40-4, 34 KOs), who knocked out Ireland’s Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan (28-3, 20 KOs) in the first round on the undercard Saturday night to become the mandatory challenger for Alvarez’s WBA middleweight title. That would leave Golovkin (38-1-1, 34 KOs) to find another opponent before attempting to secure a third fight against Alvarez (50-1-2, 34 KOs) later in 2019.

“I think that in this business, in this boxing business, they have to look at all the possibilities for the future not only for Canelo, but also for Golovkin,” Sanchez told BoxingScene.com following a press conference Saturday night. “I think that, as a pair, they stand to do better than any fight that either one could ever have [against another opponent]. Eric Gomez, after the decision was announced, came over to me and says, ‘Man, we’ve gotta do a third one. We’ve gotta do a third one.’ I said, ‘Yeah, man, talk to Tom.’ I think next May 5th would be a perfect date. I think it’s a strong possibility that if there’s another fight between them that it’s gonna happen May the 5th.”

A third Alvarez-Golovkin battle would be the most profitable fight for both boxers. Golovkin and his promoter, Tom Loeffler, have talked about Golovkin returning to the ring in December, but Sanchez would prefer that the 36-year-old Golovkin takes a long break after a grueling rematch versus Alvarez.

“No, I wouldn’t want him to,” Sanchez said regarding Golovkin fighting in December or early in 2019. “I would want him to rest now. He’s had some good fights. He rests now and comes back to the gym at the beginning of the year, and they fight in May.”

Naturally, Kazakhstan’s Golovkin wants nothing more than another shot at Alvarez, who hasn’t decided whether he’ll box again before May 4.

“Yes, of course we would like to have a third fight,” Golovkin said during the press conference. “We would continue [to] negotiate about that. It would be great to have a third fight.”

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