By Dan Ambrose: Jeff Mayweather thinks middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin doesn’t have enough to offer Mexican superstar Saul “Canelo” Alvarez right now in terms of popularity, and he says the fight isn’t worth it for Canelo right now. Mayweather feels that there’s not enough demand from the boxing public in the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight, largely because Golovkin has been facing too many smaller fighters and guys that fans don’t care about.
Mayweather says he wouldn’t put Canelo in with Golovkin if he were managing his career, because there’s too much risk for the reward. Mayweather would continue to match Canelo against other opponents until the boxing fans start showing a tremendous amount of interest in the Canelo-Golovkin fight.
In the meantime, Mayweather says Golovkin needs to move up in weight to fight Andre Ward at super middleweight, because there’s nobody for him to fight at 160 other than Daniel Jacobs. Jeff points out that Golovkin wants to fight his nephew Floyd Mayweather Jr. despite the fact that he fights 13 pounds under his weight class.
Jeff says that Golovkin should be willing to go up eight pounds to fight Ward, because there’s less weight between them. Jeff says that Golovkin is “begging” Mayweather to fight him. Jeff doesn’t see Golovkin as a fighter that is daring to be great, because he’s afraid to take risks with his boxing career.
Mayweather wasn’t impressed with Golovkin’s recent fight against Kell Brook. He noted that Golovkin won the fight, but he didn’t look good in the fight. Golovkin won the fight by a 5h round knockout over Brook, but he took some shots every now and then.
Jeff Mayweather said to Helen Yee this about Golovkin:
“It’s unfortunate for Triple G. Triple G is a good fighter and perhaps a great fighter, but no one will ever know because the competition in his division, there is none,” said Jeff Mayweather. “Probably Daniel Jacobs is the only real threat in his weight class. If I’m going to be honest; if someone asked me who has Triple G fought other than Kell Brook, I don’t know. He’s a good fighter, but he’s not willing to take risks to be greater in the sense you have Andre Ward. He’s only eight pounds heavier than you, but you’re begging for Floyd, who is 13 pounds lighter than you. Plus, he’s never really fought at 154. Floyd’s fought at 148 pounds. That’s the highest he’s ever weighed in his whole career, and you’re still begging to try and fight him. Everyone knows what that’s about, because everybody wants to fight Floyd. If he [Golovkin] wants to be great, and if he’s looking for legacy, fight Andre Ward. He called you out. Why don’t you fight him? If there’s nobody for you to fight, and you continue to fight smaller guys, you’re going to see no respect. The fight with Kell Brook, he didn’t look that good.”
Golovkin says he’d move down to 154 to fight Mayweather. It wouldn’t be 13 pounds that Mayweather would need to come up in weight for them to fight. It would be more like six or seven pounds. Mayweather already fought Canelo at 152lbs in 2013. Mayweather would only need to move up two additional pounds to fight Golovkin.
“To be great, he has to fight someone. Unfortunately, there’s no one there, but still great fighters move up. Canelo’s the A-side. Canelo knows his position. He knows he’s the guy Triple G needs to become someone. But Canelo is still young. He’s young enough to where he can keep making money here, there, this and that. I’m not going to take that kind of risk either if I’m in the same position of Canelo, knowing I’m the most important person in boxing. I’m not fixing to risk my status either. I don’t need Triple G. What do I need him for? I’ll fight him when I’m ready to. By the time I do fight him, maybe there will be public demand, and that’s what you need. When you want a fight to happen, it has to be public demand. But as long as Triple G is fighting smaller guys and guys that nobody knows, nobody even cares. People are still going to talk about Canelo. The night he invited Triple G to his fight and he’s talking all that smack. ‘I’m a Mexican, I’m tough Here, take the belt,’ meaning you wasn’t as tough as you acting. You could have said, ‘Come on, let’s fight,’ but he didn’t say that. But he knows his value. As long as you know your value, that’s all that matters. As long as you know your value, you can fight a Liam Smith. You can fight anybody, because you’re still going to get paid good money. But Triple G needs you to get a good payday, and he knows that. He’s letting the fight build to the point where the public is going to demands it. When the public starts demanding that fight, that’s when the purse is going to run up to probably $10 million or $8 million or something like that. Then it’s worth it. Me as a manager or someone in control of his career, I still want the public to demand the fight. When they make the demand for the fight, now I can negotiate on the terms that I want to because the fight is in demand,” said Mayweather.
I think it would be a mistake for Golovkin to move up in weight to fight Andre Ward right now. The time for a fight against Ward was BEFORE he moved up to light heavyweight to fight Sergey Kovalev. It’s too late now. Ward has a fight against Kovalev on November 19. If Ward loses that fight, then that destroys the interest from the boxing fans in the fight between him and Golovkin. Even if Ward wins against Kovalev, he would likely ask Golovkin to move up to at least 172 to fight him. Ward would probably see himself in a position of power over Golovkin if he beats Kovalev. For that reason, I can’t see Ward being open to going back down to 168 for a fight against Golovkin.