By Miguel Rivera

World Boxing Council President Mauricio Sulaiman has mandated that next month's winner, between Miguel Cotto (40-4, 33KOs) and Saul "Canelo" Alvarez (45-1-1, 32KOs), must face Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (34-0, 31KOs) next.

Cotto defends his WBC middleweight title against Canelo on November 21 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

Golovkin unified the WBA/IBO/IBF title on Saturday when he stopped David Lemieux in eight round at Madison Square Garden in New York City. 

The WBC had previously ordered the Golovkin-Lemieux, Cotto-Canelo winners to face each other.

Unless the parties come to some agreement, the WBC will not allow the Cotto-Canelo winner to bypass a mandatory defense against Golovkin.

The negotiations will be ordered a few weeks after next month's fight and Sulaiman anticipates the bout happening in "March or April" but the likely date, if it happens, would be in May on the lucrative Cinco De Mayo weekend.

"The winner of Cotto-Canelo must fight Golovkin," Sulaiman said. "Canelo and Cotto are at an elite level in boxing, and Golovkin has been demonstrating that he belongs there too. This would be one of the biggest fights in history. Golovkin has demonstrated exactly why he is at the level of being considered one of the two best fighters [pound-for-pound] in boxing."