By Eric Baldwin: Saul Canelo Alvarez and his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions aren’t taking the fight with Gennady Golovkin right now because there’s not enough money in that fight, according to trainer Freddie Roach. While Roach isn’t connected to Canelo or Golden Boy in looking out for the Mexican fighter’s welfare, he says he undercards why Golden Boy isn’t making the fight against Golovkin.
Roach doesn’t see Golovkin as a pay-per-view fighter right now, and a fight between him and Canelo just doesn’t make enough money to justify putting the fight together. Roach points out that boxing has a business aspect to it with fighters needing to make as much money as they can to set themselves up for later life when they’re no longer competing. Roach thinks there just isn’t enough of a demand for a fight between Golovkin and Canelo to make it a big enough fight for the risk involved from Canelo’s side.
Canelo is already a star, but Golovkin isn’t. Therefore, Canelo doesn’t need the fight against Golovkin to make money, because he’s already a star. Fighting Golovkin won’t make Canelo much more of a star than he is now, and there’s a risk that Canelo could become less of a star if he loses. It’s Golovkin that needs the Canelo fight to get to the next level not the other way around. Because of that, there’s no real incentive on Canelo and Golden Boy’s part to make the fight against Golovkin now or ever unless he’s able to become popular enough for that to change.
“The thing is this is a business,” said Roach to Fighthub about why Canelo shouldn’t fight Golovkin. “You’ve got to make as much money as you can. I just don’t know if there’s enough money in that fight [Canelo vs. Golovkin] right now. Triple G, he might be the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world today, but he’s not the best pay-per-view fighter in the world. He doesn’t have a big audience on pay-per-view. I think because he hasn’t had the right opponents. Canelo isn’t fighting Triple G because of his promoters. It has nothing to do with his decisions. There’s a business end also. You have to listen to your promoters and managers some of the time,” said Roach.
It’s a race against time with the 34-year-old Golovkin to try and become a star in time to lure Canelo into the ring before he ages to the point where he’s lost his power and boxing skills. Golovkin says it himself that he has maybe three years left in his career at the most before he retires. That means that he’s going to have to become popular enough in the next three years to get Canelo into the ring or else the fight will probably never happen.
Golovkin did come a far ways from the popularity that he had back in 2013 to where he is now, but he’s still got a long ways to go before he gets to the point where he’s a PPV attraction. Fighting Kell Brook is a good move on Golovkin’s part to win over fans in the UK, but the fight won’t do much to increase his popularity in the United States. Golovkin needs to fight guys like Daniel Jacobs, Andre Ward, and Gilberto Ramirez to become a big name in the U.S. Fighting Brook and some of the middleweights won’t do enough.
When asked if Chris Eubank Jr. vs. Golovkin is a good fight, Roach said, “Eubank Jr. is okay, but he’s not even close to the fighter his father was. He’s not that good. Eubank Sr. was a good fighter and a tough guy. His son, not even close.”
In speaking about the Golovkin vs. Kell Brook fight, Roach said, “He’s the middleweight champion. Kell Brook offered to go up in weight. It’s not Triple G’s fault. Where are the mandatories and stuff like that? Why aren’t the officials pushing the mandatories so that the best fight the best at some point? It doesn’t seem to happen.”
“Canelo, I have no problems with Manny [Pacquiao] fighting him,” said Roach. “The only thing I’m going to try and get on him, there’s got to be a limit in how much he can gain from the official weigh-in to him getting in the ring. We’ve got to have a catch-weight somewhere where he can’t gain 30 pounds. It’s too much of an advantage. Manny is a very small 147 pounder. Manny walks around right now at 138-140,” said Roach.
This is Roach speaking about wanting the Canelo vs. Pacquiao fight, not the promoter for Pacquiao, Bob Arum of Top Rank. Arum has made it clear that he doesn’t want to match Pacquiao against Canelo. That’s not a doable fight. Roach doesn’t make the fights for Pacquiao or put up the money for his large purses. Arum is the money man. He’s interested in matching Pacquiao against Terence Crawford next year, and that’s probably the fight we’re going to see. If Pacquiao remains with Top Rank, he’s very likely going to finish his career fighting Arum’s fighters.
If Pacquiao agrees to fight Crawford next year, we could see two or three fights between the two of them, because Arum likes to make rematches. The 84-year-old promoter doesn’t have anyone else in his Top Rank stable to match against Pacquiao after the Vargas and Crawford fights are done with. Arum likely won’t bankroll a fight between Pacquiao and a non-Top Rank fighter with the small amount of time he has left before he retires permanently. That’s why we’re probably going to see Pacquiao limited to fighting Crawford from now on after the Vargas fight. I think Arum will stick the two together for at least three fights in a row if Pacquiao is willing to do that for the promoter. Crawford would be a big star by the time he finishes the three fights with Pacquiao if he doesn’t lose to him all there times. Pacquiao would probably make a lot more money fighting Canelo, but I don’t think Arum is going to make that fight because I think he’s going to focus on having Pacquiao turn Crawford into a star by matching him against the Omaha, Nebraska fighter as much as he can before Pacquiao decides that he’s had enough.