By Dan Ambrose: In a huge sign that we might not be seeing a unification fight this year in between IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and WBC belt holder Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya, who promotes Canelo, says that negotiations would start with Canelo getting a 90-10 money split for a fight against Golovkin if he gets his way.
De La Hoya sees the 25-year-old Canelo as the bigger name than Golovkin and the main draw for a pay-per-view fight on HBO. Because of that, De La Hoya justifies the 90-10 money split, which would be hugely tilted in Canelo’s favor.
It’s unclear what the money split was for Canelo’s fights against Erislandy Lara, James Kirkland and Alfredo Angulo were in the past, but it wouldn’t be surprising at all to learn that the split was similar to the 90-10 split that De La Hoya is talking about here.
“If I had my way, if the fight occurs tomorrow, negotiations would be 90 percent for Canelo and 10 percent for Golovkin,” De La Hoya said to ESPN Desportes. “So obviously these negotiations would be complicated, but in time we will sit down and put together this fight. It’s a fight that everyone wants to see,” De La Hoya said.
Looks like Golovkin has a big decision to make about how badly he wants the Canelo fight. If he agrees to the 90-10 revenue split, then I can see Golden Boy coming up with something else equally hard for Golovkin to stomach.
Earlier today, Canelo’s trainer Eddy Reynoso said that they will be staying with the 155lb catch-weight that Canelo has been using for his last four fights. If Golovkin is going to fight Canelo, it will likely need to be at a catch-weight of 155lbs. I guess the 90-10 purse split is another condition that Golovkin would need to be willing to agree to if he wants to fight Canelo, who is Golden Boy’s flagship fighter in their stable.
Canelo has a definite advantage over Golovki in terms of popularity in the United States. Canelo has a huge built in fan base in the U.S, and Golovkin doesn’t have such a thing going for him. Golovkin has win fans the hard way by producing. It’s safe to say that if Golovkin struggled the way Canelo did in beating the likes of Erislandy Lara, Austin Trout and Miguel Cotto, he wouldn’t be popular at all. If Golovkin lost to Floyd Mayweather Jr. like Canelo did, it’s almost academic that he would have no fans base even for his fights on regular non-PPV HBO.
It doesn’t seem to matter to Canelo’s fans that he was badly beaten by Mayweather, and almost beaten by Lara, Trout and Cotto. The fans love Canelo anyway. Canelo never proved that he could dominate fighters in the 154lb division, but it does not matter. Golovkin will likely never be given that easy free pass that Canelo gets. Golovkin has to win over fans by impressing them with knockouts. He’s doing it the hard way. However, it’s still unlikely that Golovkin will ever have the fan base that Canelo has.
Hope my fans are ready to rumble! @Michael_Buffer pic.twitter.com/WNiGhbQZpc
— Gennady Golovkin (@GGGBoxing) January 14, 2016
Canelo has already established his credentials as being the superior box office/pay per view fighter than Golovkin. Canelo’s fight with Mayweather drew 2.2 million PPV buys in 2013. Canelo’s fight against Alfredo Angulo brought in 400,000 PPV buys on Showtime. Canelo’s fight against Lara brought in 350,000 PPV buys. In Canelo’s last fight, he and Miguel Cotto brought in 900,000 PPV buys on HBO. In contrast, Golovkin’s fight against David Lemieux last October brought in just 100,000 PPV buys on HBO.
90-10 purse split is similar to some of the purse splits we previously saw with Mayweather when he fighting different fighters that didn’t have the same financial clout as him. His opponents had little choice but to take the smaller money if they wanted a fight with him. As far as Golovkin does, I doubt that there’s going to be much give with the split of the revenue. De La Hoya is likely dead serious about starting the negotiation at a 90-10 split and then keeping it there.
Golovkin’s promoters at K2 Promotions might be able to get it to an 80-20 split, but I doubt it. I think it’s going to be a 90-10 if he wants the fight. It could go to a purse bid if they fail to agree to the huge split. Golovkin just wants the title, and he likely will accept the smaller money in order to get the chance to scalp Canelo and add his pelt to his collection. A victory over Canelo will increase Golvokin’s popularity in a hurry, and that in turn could turn him into a pay-per-view attraction in the lower end of the spectrum.
As we’ve already seen, Canelo can afford to lose without it hurting his popularity at all. I don’t think Canelo’s fans care. They just want to see him in exciting fights, and they seem to like the way he looks. I believe that’s a part of it. I doubt that Canelo’s fans will abandon him no matter how many defeats he absorbs, and I do believe he’s going to lose a lot of fights over his career because he’s not a Mayweather or Julio Cesar Chavez type talent.
I see Canelo as a guy that uses weight advantage to beat lighter fighters than himself. In that theme, Canelo is like a newer version of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. before he could no longer make the middleweight, where he was able to dehydrate down to in order to crush a lot of lighters than himself.
Once Chavez Jr. could no longer melt down to the 160lb division, his career has not been the same in fighting at super middleweight. One advantage that Canelo has over Chavez Jr. is that he doesn’t famous father than he’s compared to unfavorably. This means that when Canelo loses or struggles to beat fighters like Lara, Trout and Cotto in controversial wins, the fans don’t jump all over him the way they would Chavez Jr., because he doesn’t have a famous father Chavez Sr.
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