Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez will fight Liam Smith at Texas’ AT&T Stadium

Canelo Alvarez will warm up the Texas crowd for his promised 2017 meeting against Gennady Golovkin by taking his Sept. 17 junior-middleweight title fight against Liam Smith to AT&T Stadium outside Dallas.

Golden Boy Promotions will formally announce the site Monday afternoon with a news conference at the home of the Dallas Cowboys, where Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 knockouts) will seek to take the World Boxing Organization 154-pound belt from England’s Smith (23-0-1, 13 KOs) in an HBO pay-per-view bout.

Tickets, priced from $40-$750, go on sale at 10 a.m. Pacific time on Thursday. A portion of proceeds will go to Dallas Police and Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) Officers, Golden Boy announced.

Alvarez, 25, has been hammered by criticism after he knocked out England welterweight Amir Khan on May 7 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and motioned a ringside-watching Golovkin inside the ring, where Alvarez vowed a true Mexican doesn’t fear such a challenge.

Yet, days later, Alvarez surrendered his WBC middleweight belt to mandatory challenger Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs), and proceeded to the bout against a lightly regarded belt-holder in Smith, who’s regarded in the business as a paper champion.

Golovkin, riding a 22-fight knockout streak and 16 consecutive World Boxing Assn. middleweight title victories, will instead fight unbeaten welterweight champion Kell Brook in a Sept. 10 middleweight bout at London’s O2 Arena.

Alvarez’s handlers suggest he will fight again this calendar year at 160 pounds, and then decide whether he needs one more fight at middleweight in May 2017 before keeping his promise to fight Golovkin in September 2017.

The possibility exists, one Alvarez handler said, that Golovkin-Alvarez could be staged in May 2017.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has met personally with both Alvarez’s promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, and Golovkin’s promoter, Tom Loeffler, to discuss placing boxing’s next super-fight at the massive venue.

As Mexico’s most popular active fighter, Alvarez has a large following in Texas, as proven by the 40,000 who watched his April 2013 unanimous-decision victory over Austin Trout and the 31,000 who attended his May 2015 knockout of James Kirkland at Minute Maid Park in Houston.

Alvarez’s fight date coincides with Mexican Independence Day ceremonies.

“Texas loves Canelo, and Canelo loves Texas so it was a no-brainer to have this fight at AT&T Stadium,” De La Hoya said in a prepared statement. “Texas is like Canelo’s second home, and he has stated that he wants to fight in Texas once a year for his fans. My friend Jerry Jones extended the invitation to Canelo to fight at AT&T Stadium, so it was an easy decision for us.”

Jones has previously staged two Manny Pacquiao fights at his stadium, and said, “AT&T Stadium was built to host great events like Canelo versus Smith.”

While fans would rather have Golovkin as the opponent, for now, Smith will have to do.

Follow Lance Pugmire on Twitter @latimespugmire