Mayweather thinks Canelo is being rushed into Golovkin fight

By Boxing News - 12/24/2015 - Comments

golovkin5554(Photo credit: World Boxing Council) By Dan Ambrose: Promoter Floyd Mayweather Jr. doesn’t agree with Golden Boy Promotions quickly looking to match their franchise fighter WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) back into the ring to face unbeaten IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) in 2016 in what could be a really tough fight for the 25-year-old Canelo.

Mayweather does not like the idea of Golden Boy having Canelo fight another tough opponent after his recent win over 25-year-old Miguel Cotto last November in their fight on HBO pay-per-view.

Mayweather thinks that they should care about Canelo’s health by not rushing that fight so soon. Mayweather feels that the Canelo-Golovkin fight should be allowed to build before it’s finally made.

“Canelo just came off a good, exciting victory against a future Hall of Famer, Miguel Cotto, but they’re so fast to try and throw this guy right back in the lion’s den with another guy [Golovkin] that they say is one of the top fighters in boxing,” Mayweather said to Fighthype.com.

I think the answer for why Golden Boy is putting Canelo in with Golovkin now rather than later is a complicated one. For starters, Golovkin is the No.1 WBC mandatory challenger, and Canelo is the WBC middleweight champion. If Canelo vacates his WBC title rather than fight Golovkin, he’s going to lose a lot of fans because they’ll see him as a coward.

That’s the first reason why Canelo must face Golovkin now. Another problem is Golovkin is 33-years-old now, and not a young fighter like the 25-year-old Canelo. If Golden Boy waits to match Canelo against Golovkin, they could setup a situation where Canelo won’t receive any credit if he beats Golovkin. It would next to impossible for Canelo to receive credit for beating Golovkin if Golden Boy waits until Golovkin is 40-years-old before they allow him to take that fight.

Finally, if Golden Boy does not let Canelo fight Golovkin now, it means that Golden Boy will need to match Canelo against tough fighters like Tureano Johnson, Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade, Erislandy Lara [again], Billy Joe Saunders, David Lemieux, Arif Magomedov, Daniel Jacobs and Chris Eubank Jr. There’s a good chance that Canelo could lose to one or more of those fighters.

I’d say there’s a very, very good chance that Canelo could lose to one of those guys. Canelo already almost lost to Lara and Austin Trout. Canelo will not make the same kind of money fighting those guys as he would fighting Golovkin. So for those reasons, it’s better that Golden Boy matches Canelo against Golovkin as soon as possible in order to get the big money while it’s still on the table rather than waiting around and hoping that the money can build slowly by letting the Canelo-Golovkin fight marinate for 2 to 7 years.

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“Why is the promoter rushing and trying to throw Canelo right back in there in another rough and tough fight?” Mayweather said. “If they really care about your health and your well-being, if they really care about you and your family, which they don’t, because I know; I’ve been in this sport forever, so I done seen how it works, but if they really care, me, as a promoter, I’d let that fight build.”

It’s a gamble that Golden Boy is taking by letting Canelo take the fight now with Golovkin, but it’s one that could very well pay off for them if Canelo wins. If Canelo beats Golovkin, he’ll likely push himself to the level previously occupied by Mayweather in terms of popularity and pay-per-view buys. So instead of Canelo’s fights bringing in 350,000 to 900,000 pay-per-view buys, Canelo could make the leap to his fights bringing in over 1 million buys almost every time he fights depending on the match-ups.

In the short run, it might look like a risky thing for Canelo to face Golovkin now, but the money that Canelo can make afterwards for his fights is stratospheric. If you want to make big money in the sport and in life, you’ve got to take risks. If Canelo plays it safe the way that Mayweather wants himself to, he’ll be shortchanging himself by making a lot less money than he otherwise could make.



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