Alvarez faces a crossroads with Golovkin decision

1:56 AM ET

LAS VEGAS — Standing atop boxing’s throne, moments removed from a chilling sixth-round knockout of Amir Khan, middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez provided boxing fans with the words they longed to hear.

“We don’t f— around,” said Alvarez, through an interpreter, after gesturing toward unified titlist Gennady Golovkin, who was sitting ringside, to enter the ring. “I fear no one in this sport.”

Punch statsPunchesAlvarezKhanLanded6448Thrown170166Percent38%29%– Courtesy of CompuBox

Alvarez didn’t go as far as committing to a fall showdown with Golovkin, the oft-avoided middleweight destroyer who is the No. 1 contender to Alvarez’s WBC title. But he didn’t run from it, and now has 15 days to prove his actions are as strong as his words by making the fight against Golovkin or be stripped of his belt.

The recent (and likely short-term) retirements of Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao opened the door for a new face of the sport to emerge. Alvarez very much looked the part on Saturday night, as the 25-year-old Mexican heartthrob christened brand-new T-Mobile Arena with a gruesome one-punch knockout.

It wasn’t a fight as much as a coronation, with Alvarez headlining a pay-per-view on Cinco de Mayo weekend — boxing’s Super Bowl — for the first time, thus completing his training as Mayweather’s de facto Padawan learner-in-waiting.

Canelo Alvarez connected a powerful right hand in the sixth round that sent Amir Khan down for the count. AP Photo/Isaac Brekken

While Alvarez’s victory announced a new era in the sport, it’s not crystal clear what that era will look like or, to extend the galactic reference even further, how tempted Alvarez will be by the dark side.

Outside of a Mayweather-Pacquiao rematch, Alvarez-Golovkin is the biggest and most lucrative event the sport can produce in 2016, with each fighter — despite a nine-year age difference — at the peak of their respective primes. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was ringside on Saturday as a special guest of promoter Oscar De La Hoya, teasing the notion that this superfight could take place at a venue as large as AT&T Stadium.

While membership to boxing’s elite fraternity certainly brings privilege — and make no mistake, Alvarez would be the A-side against Golovkin — it also brings responsibility, as each star fighter must find a way to serve all three masters it answers to: his bank account, his health/longevity, and his fans, who ultimately pay his salary through pay-per-view buys.

Few have been able to strike this balance as perfectly as De La Hoya, who rose to fame and fortune without sacrificing his reputation with fans in the process. Alvarez has mostly modeled his promoter’s “dare to be great” philosophy thus far, but we have entered a new era in boxing in terms of the political and financial control a star …

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