Golovkin likely will need to agree to catch-weight for Canelo fight

By Boxing News - 05/24/2016 - Comments

Image: Golovkin likely will need to agree to catch-weight for Canelo fight

By Dan Ambrose: IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) may have lost his only chance of getting a fight against Mexican star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KOs) when Canelo vacated his WBC 160lb title last week.

With the WBC title, there was no way that Canelo could give the knockout artist Golovkin a take it or leave it offer by telling him that he must fight at a strength-draining catch-weight of 155lbs and agree to a lopsided purse split of 90-10.

Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler is reportedly saying that the negotiations have disappeared completely for the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight ever since Canelo vacated his WBC middleweight title. That obviously isn’t a good sign. That suggests that not only did Canelo want to give up the WBC title, he also was done with the idea of fighting Golovkin at all, period. There hasn’t been any contact since then between the two promotional companies, and you can draw your own conclusions for what that might mean. It tells me that Canelo and Golden Boy are not interested in the Golovkin fight at this time. Perhaps later on down the line they might be interested.

The World Boxing Council couldn’t enforce those things on a mandatory challenger. But with the 25-year-old Canelo vacating his WBC title, he and his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions can give Golovkin an ultimatum that if they want fight against them, then they’ll need to play by their rules by agreeing to a catch-weight of 155 and a purse split that will likely be far removed from the 55-45 that we would have seen had Canelo kept his WBC belt.

Canelo’s letter to the media pointed out that he wants his promoters at Golden Boy to continue to work on putting together the fight against Golovkin as soon as possible. However, what Canelo didn’t say is what kind of deal Golovkin and his promoters at K2 Promotions would need to agree to in order to get the fight against him. Canelo is the 900 pound gorilla right now in the sport, as he’s now the top money earner in pay-per-view.

Golovkin’s only attempt at a PPV fight against David Lemieux last October reportedly brought in a woeful 150,000 PPV buys. If you compare those buys with the 900,000 Canelo received for his fight against Miguel Cotto, and the 2.2 million he received for his big money match against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013, it’s pretty clear there’s an imbalance in popularity between Golovkin and Canelo. However, Golovkin has proven that he can sell out large venues in California and New York. He has that going for him, but it’s not the same thing as being able to bring in a large number of PPV buys the way Canelo is able to do right now.

As far as the purse splits go, if Golovkin is only going to be offered a 90-10 split, the fight isn’t really worth it for him, especially if there’s a catch-weight attached. Yes, Golovkin will make more money than he’s ever received before, but he wouldn’t be getting equal sharing of the huge money that he would help generate. Let’s face the facts; Canelo is not going to bring in over 1 million buys fighting anyone from 140 to 160 other than Golovkin.

There’s no one left in the sport in three divisions that will help Canelo bring in 1 million buys or more. Golovkin is the only one that can help Canelo bring in a ton of buys. The only exception to that is if Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Manny Pacquiao come out of retirement and choose to fight Canelo, then he’s looking at a huge fight with more than one million buys. But since the odds of that happening are quite low, Golovkin is the best thing Canelo can get.

Canelo won’t bring in over a million buys fighting the following top guys in the sport: David Lemieux, Daniel Jacobs, Peter Quillin, Demetrius Andrade, Erislandy Lara, the Charlo brothers, Kell Brook, Danny Garcia, Terence Crawford, Tim Bradley or Keith Thurman. Those are not huge money fights. Those are decent money fights for Canelo, but not fights that will bring in 1 million PPV buys or more. So if Golovkin is the one helping Canelo get to one million buys, then he should be getting more than 10 percent of the revenue. If you take Golovkin’s name out of the equation, then Canelo is probably stuck at a little over 400,000 PPV buys under the best of circumstances unless he fights Cotto, Mayweather or Pacquiao.

At some point it might not be worth it for Golovkin to take the fight against Canelo. If Golovkin is going to have to be handicapped by a catch-weight of 155 that weakens him to the point where might not be able to win, then it would seem like a fight that is not worth taking. If Canelo and Golden Boy are going to game the system by weakening Golovkin to the point where he probably can’t win, then it’s not a good idea for Golovkin to take the fight. A loss for him would likely wreck his career.

Golovkin cannot absorb a loss like Canelo. That’s why Golovkin needs to think twice before he agrees to drain down to 155 to fight someone who is routinely doing that and is already shown that he can rehydrate into the 170s or perhaps even the 180s without it weakening him.

If Golovkin says no to the catch-weight and the lopsided purse split that is likely going to be offered to him by Golden Boy, then Canelo can move on without a guilty conscience and be able to stay that he gave Golovkin and offer but he chose not to accept it.

A fight between Golovkin and Canelo will obviously be a doable one without strings attached like a debilitating catch-weight, but that will likely be years in the future when Golovkin is older and less of a threat to beating Canelo like he is now. But even then, Golovkin will still need to agree to a purse split that is heavily tilted in Canelo’s favor. That’s a given.