Unfair treatment of Golovkin by elite fighters?

By Boxing News - 07/31/2014 - Comments

golovkin1By Robert “Big Moe” Elmore: Gennady Golovkin has called out fellow middleweight champion Miguel Cotto and Carl Froch boxing. So far it has netted him nothing. The fight that the public really seems to claiming for is GGG and Andre Ward to get it on. But on several occasions, Tom Loeffler, GGG’s promoter, said they are looking for pay per view bouts.

Gabriel Penagaricano, Cotto adviser, told the Boxing Voice, that GGG is not reached the majors in boxing. He also went on to say the Russian hasn’t participated in a pay per view event. In a recent interview, Froch’s promoter Eddie Hearn said that there wasn’t enough money or fan interest yet for a fight between Froch and Golovkin to take place.

Some boxing fans are always over looking the business side of the sport and like to focus strictly on “let’s make the fight happen”. Fans get emotional when talking about getting fights made. But emotions have no room in the business world. I have said it before and I’ll say it again. When a fighter from a different country is fight on American soil, he has to capture the American audience. Period. There is no other way around it.

If GGG were fighting in his hometown of Karaganda, I’m sure he would pack the house every time he fought. His debut in Madison Square Garden against Daniel Geale drew over eight thousand fans, but HBO ratings took a hit in ratings. Why? The casual fan did not know who Daniel Geale was. I can tell you this, eight thousand fans is not going to cut it when Tom Loeffler is talking about doing a pay per view event.

Consider this. The Cotto – Sergio Martinez bout took a big hit in terms of pay per view sales (375,000). Cotto was the draw, but the problem was Martinez brought nothing to the table for this particular fight. In Martinez’s fight with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. the fight did very well (475,000 buys). But I give a lot of that credit to Chavez Jr because of the fan base he bought.

When it comes to GGG fighting Andre Ward, Loeffler has stated that it doesn’t make financial sense to make a fight. How can one get upset at Cotto and Froch when there teams say “the fight doesn’t make financial sense” when Loeffler says the same thing about making the fight with Ward? Before his fight with Saul Alvarez, Erislandy Lara called out GGG. Loeffler responded to Lara on his social media sight saying “Lara is not approved by HBO and is never on our radar, he should be calling Quillin out, if he wins, he becomes interesting. Lara fights on Showtime and had draws with Vanes and Molina, GGG vs Stevens=high ratings. Who watches Lara”?

So if I understood this quote correctly, Lara had to go fight and beat Qullin, and then he becomes interesting? So would be fair to say that GGG needs to beat Ward and then he becomes interesting to Cotto and Froch or even Saul Alvarez? And GGG’s trainer, Abel Sanchez says “they are ready to fight Ward only if Ward understands that GGG is the bigger star bigger draw”? I find that a bit hypocritical of team GGG. If Loeffler is that confident in his fighters star power, why not test that theory. There has been talks of GGG fighting IBF champ Sam Soliman. Put that fight on pay per view and see what it does.

Neither Ward or Golovkin are big draws for certain reasons. Ward has the better resume and GGG brings excitement because of his ability to produce knockouts. The fight would be on regular HBO because I stated neither fighter are big draws. In GGG, they have to create an opportunity instead of waiting on them. The Ward fight can do that. There is a bigger picture that I believe Loeffler is failing to see in fighting Ward. If GGG beats Ward, then GGG steals Wards crowd. At that point, like Loeffler said that Lara would become interesting if he were to beat Quillin, then GGG, becomes interesting to bigger names if he beats Ward.



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