Canelo’s promoter wants Golovkin’s management to negotiate deal

By Boxing News - 09/23/2016 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: Eric Gomez of Golden Boy Promotions wants middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler to sit down with him to negotiate a deal for a fight against Golden Boy star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez for September 2017. Gomez wants to get the Canelo-Golovkin fight negotiated right now for some reason. It’s not in Golovkin’s best interest to accept a lump sum deal. He’s about to fight Daniel Jacobs in December.

A victory over Jacobs will increase Golovkin’s negotiating power. If Golovkin defeats WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders in early 2017, he’ll have cleaned out the middleweight division by capturing the last title not in his possession and beaten the last threat to him. If Golovkin agrees to do a deal with Golden Boy now, he wouldn’t be in the same position as he’ll be later on down the road.

Gomez says he can prove that Canelo is a bigger draw than Golovkin. Loeffler made a counter offer to the original eight-figure offer from Golden Boy, and Gomez’s response seems to be him wanting Loeffler to know that Canelo is the bigger draw. It doesn’t appear that Gomez is receptive to Loeffler’s counter offer.

Gomez says that if Loeffler is serious about wanting the Canelo fight for GGG, then he should accept the eight-figure offer that was given to him by Golden Boy CEO Oscar De La Hoya. The offer was a lump sum offer from Golden Boy with an unspecified percentage of the pay-per-view revenue, which could be well over 1 million buys.

Loeffler wants a percentage deal for Golovkin, not just percentage of the pay-per-view. There’s also gate money for the fight, and a site fee that Golovkin would be missing out on if they only agree to a lump sum and a percentage of the pay-per-view. If the fight took place at the 80,000 seat AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, they could sell out the entire stadium.

If Golovkin isn’t going to get a chance to share in the revenue that is generated from ticket sales, then it’s not a great deal for him. It would be a great deal for Canelo and Golden Boy, because they would get to keep it all. Canelo isn’t going to sell out a stadium that size with the fighters in the sport unless maybe he takes on the winner of the Sergey Kovalev vs. Andre Ward fight. Canelo isn’t going to take on guys that size, even though his weight probably isn’t that far away from those two light heavyweights.

“I told [them], ‘Let’s sit down and continue the conversation,’ and I haven’t heard back. And if they seriously think we don’t want to make the fight, then take this offer. It’s the most money Golovkin’s ever made,” said Gomez to Lance Pugmire of the latimes.com. “I could come up with 10 or 20 points that prove Canelo is … by far the bigger draw,” Gomez said.

The direction Gomez seems to be going in by him waning to prove to Loeffler that Canelo is the bigger draw is him and Golden Boy wanting to justify taking the bigger slice of the pie and perhaps NOT giving Golovkin a percentage. It works out in Canelo’s favor obviously if Golovkin doesn’t get a percentage of the revenue, because he keep more of the money.

Canelo’s recent fight against WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith on September 17 brought in less than 300,000 buys on HBO. In contrast, Golovkin’s recent fight against Kell Brook on September 10 brought in 500,000 buys on Sky Box Office pay-per-view in the UK. Canelo’s fight against Smith brought in 51,000 fans at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Golovkin vs. Brook sold out the O2 arena with 20,000 tickets sold. It’s unclear how many tickets would have been sold if the Golovkin-Brook fight was staged at the giant sized 80,000 seat Wembley Stadium in London, England.

“When it’s a super-fight like this, you need time to build up for it, to generate the most money possible. That’s what we want to do, and we’ve made a serious offer,” said Gomez.
It looks like Gomez and De La Hoya are going to stick with their original offer that they gave Golovkin from a month ago. You would think that they would know by now that the offer has been rejected by Loeffler and Golovkin. In other words, there’s no interest. I’m not sure why De La Hoya and Gomez keep talking about the offer they made. They’re clearly not going to get Golovkin and Loeffler accept the offer by repeating it over and over.

Loeffler has already made a counter offer of the percentage deal request. If Golden Boy doesn’t want to do that, then they should go in another direction and forget about Golovkin. They’re not going to find anyone that can bring in the kind of money that Golovkin will. There’s no one out there. If Golden Boy is going to continue to be careful in how they match Canelo, then they’re going to need to keep him away from guys like Daniel Jacobs and some of the best fighters in the 154lb division that they didn’t bother matching against Canelo.
“Call our bluff. We’re ready to make the fight,” said Gomez.

It does sound like Gomez and Golden Boy are ready to make the Canelo-Golovkin fight happen, but on their terms only. If Golovkin isn’t going to get a percentage of the revenue, then he’ll miss out on a lot of money potentially. Without getting a percentage, it wouldn’t be a great deal for Golovkin. He would be getting only a fraction of the money brought in. Canelo and Golden Boy would be the one that would do well. If this is the only huge mega-fight that Golovkin is ever involved in with his career, then it would be sad, because Canelo would get the lion’s share and there likely won’t be a rematch between the two fighters if it’s a one-sided fight like many boxing fans thinks it will be.

“We accept the fact that even though ‘GGG’ is the champion, Canelo would be the ‘A’ side of the promotion,” said Loeffler to the latimes.com.