By Dan Ambrose: In what appears to be a case of Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya letting middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin know that he had better accept the eight-figure offer given to him for a fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, De La Hoya is saying that he wishes Golovkin luck trying to find another fighter that will give him the same money that he’s offering him for a fight next year.
De La Hoya has reportedly offered Golovkin $10 million for a fight that some boxing fans think could make more than $100 million. De La Hoya says that Golovkin needs to accept the offer given to him. He says Golovkin can make more with the pay-per-view upside he’ll be getting for the fight. Just how much extra money Golovkin can make is unclear.
De La Hoya isn’t saying what Golovkin’s percentage of the financial pot is for the fight, and that has a lot of boxing fans wary. If Golovkin is getting 5% to 10% for the fight against Canelo, then it’s not a good deal. If Canelo is getting between 70 and 95% of the money for the fight, then you have to think Golovkin would be making a mistake in agreeing to the offer.
“There’s obviously [pay-per-view] upside and if he’s not happy with what I’m offering, good luck to him fighting someone where he can make that money. He never will,” said De La Hoya via the latimes.com.
Wow! De La Hoya is really giving Golovkin a clear message here with him telling him that he wishes him luck in finding someone else that will give him that kind of payday. It’s a two-edged sword. Canelo isn’t going to get the kind of money he’ll be seeing fighting anyone but Golovkin. Golden Boy can’t trot out Miguel Cotto again and think that Canelo will make a ton of money from a rematch. The pay-per-view upside for a fight between Canelo and Golovkin likely won’t be enough to justify Golovkin agreeing to $10 million. It would be better if De La Hoya offered him a percentage deal of 55-45. That would likely get Golovkin and his promoter to agree to the fight quickly.
The boxing fans already saw the Canelo-Cotto fight, and they saw that Canelo was way too big for the tiny 5’7” Cotto. Canelo isn’t going to make huge money fighting any of the welterweights or junior middleweights. Floyd Mayweather Jr. is retired, so he’s not an option. Manny Pacquiao has already said recently that Canelo is too big to fight. There’s no one popular enough in the super middleweight division for Canelo to get big money fighting. I don’t think Golden Boy will risk putting Canelo in with a light heavyweight like Andre Ward, Sergey Kovalev or Adonis Stevenson, because he could get hurt fighting one of those guys.
Unless someone else comes along in the next 10 years to fight Canelo, Golovkin is his best and only shot at making the big money that has thus far eluded him. Canelo hasn’t made the huge money in his fights against Mayweather and Cotto. He has a chance to make the money against Golovkin, but it appears that he’s going to need to give him a fair deal for him to get the fight.
I don’t think De La Hoya is going to get the kind of results that he wants to by telling Golovkin and his promoters that they’re not going to find that kind of money fighting someone else. If anything, it might harden their stance to wait until they’re given what they feel is a fair deal or the Canelo fight. You would have to think a fair deal would be a 55-45 split of the money.
“If you say I’m going to offer you $2 million, well, guess what? I’m offering you a substantial amount. Eight figures,” De La Hoya said to the latimes.com. “Take the offer, sign the contract and let’s make the fight. Stop calling people clowns.”
Eight figures sound good, but it might not be good for Golovkin if Canelo is going to make $100 million to Golovkin’s $10 million. Sure, Canelo is the A-side in the negotiations, but he’s not fighting a guy that doesn’t bring in fans. Golovkin is going to be attracting a huge amount of interest in this fight.
As popular as Canelo is, he doesn’t bring in a lot of pay-per-view buys when he’s not fighting a major star. When Canelo fought Mayweather, they teamed up to bring in 2.2 million buys. When Canelo fought Cotto, they brought in 900,000. Canelo’s fights against other guys have brought in low PPV numbers.
Here are Canelo’s pay-per-view bouts:
Mayweather vs. Canelo – 2.2 million buys
Canelo vs. Alfredo Angulo – 350,000 buys
Canelo vs. Erislandy Lara – 325,000 buys
Canelo vs. Miguel Cotto – 900,000 buys
Canelo vs. Amir Khan – 450,000 buys
What these numbers tell us is that there have been only two fighters during Canelo’s 11-year pro career that has helped him bring in a lot of buys. Right now, there’s no one in sight for Canelo to make that kind of money that he dreams about. Unless Errol Spence Jr. can become a star in the next five to seven years, Canelo has no one he can fight that will bring in the big money he obviously wants to get.
There’s only Golovkin right now. By the time Spence becomes a huge star, Canelo will be aging and likely no longer the fighter he is today. Canelo might have a short shelf life due to him starting his career so early, and because of his stamina problems.
De La Hoya needs to realize that when your offer has been turned down by a fighter and his promoter, you can’t keep sounding like a broken record by telling them to accept the offer given to them. De La Hoya is going to end up sounding like a parrot by repeatedly telling GGG and his promoter Tom Loeffler to accept the offer given to them.
The only thing De La Hoya can do is either walk away or say he tried or bump up the offer. It’s a waste of time for De La Hoya to keep talking about the fight if he’s not going to increase the offer, because I don’t think Golovkin and his promoter Loeffler are going to change their minds and accept the deal.
Loeffler said ‘but nothing of substance that was turned down,” in speaking to the latimes.com about Canelo.