Golovkin’s Plan B is Saunders if no Canelo

By Boxing News - 05/27/2016 - Comments

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By Jeff Aranow: WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders is the Plan-B opponent for IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin if his negotiations with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fails to produce a fight for September 17. Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler has hopes that a fight can be made with Canelo, but if not, then the 26-year-old Saunders is the guy that want next.

The World Boxing Association will let Golokvin take the unification fight against Saunders or the Canelo fight, but after that, Golovkin will need to fight WBA World middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs at the end of the year. The WBA is looking to reduce the amount of champions they have in each division.

So a fight between WBA Super World middleweight champion Golovkin and Saunders is how the WBA will accomplish that. The WBA will let both Golovkin and Jacobs one more fight before ordering them to face each other.

It doesn’t matter if Golovkin faces Canelo or Saunders next. That will count as his one fight. After that, Golovkin will need to face Jacobs if he doesn’t get beaten by Sergio Mora, his next opponent.

Jacobs plans on fighting a rematch with Sergio Mora next. The WBA will allow that fight to take place, but after that, Jacobs will need to face Golovkin.

“I called Team Daniel Jacobs and they told me they want to make a fight with Sergio Mora,” said WBA president Gilberto Mendoza Jr. to ESPN.com.mx. “Golovkin and his team will look for Billy Joe Saunders. Once past that fight, they want to make a fight by the end of the year [with Jacobs,” said Mendoza.

The WBA is actually doing Golovkin a favor by ordering him to fight Jacobs later on this year because Golovkin has wanted to fight Jacobs for a while now. Now he’s finally about to get his chance after one more fight, be it against Canelo or Saunders. I would say Saunders is the more likely opponent for Golovkin.

Canelo might choose to steer around the Golovkin fight and instead look for easy payday fights against guys that he can win without any problems.

Saunders wants the Golovkin fight to take place in the UK. He’ll also likely want a bigger offer than the one that he said he received from Golovkin’s management. Saunders says he was only offered $1 million to 1.5 million to take a fight against Golovkin, and he thought that was silly money because it wasn’t enough for such a big fight like that.