By Dan Ambrose: WBA president Gilberto Mendoza is hoping WBA middleweight ‘Super champion’ Gennady “GGG” Golovkin or WBA ‘regular” champion Daniel Jacobs will NOT vacate their titles if a fight can’t get made in their negotiations for a match on December 10. Golovkin and Jacobs have slightly less than two more weeks to complete their negotiations before they reach the deadline on October 22.
If they fail to agree to a fight by then, it’ll go to a purse bid. At that point, we could see the Golovkin-Jacobs fight implode with one of them vacating. The original deadline for the negotiations is next Wednesday, but the WBA has given the two fighters an extension so they can try and get the fight made.
Jacobs’ management wants the 75/25 WBA mandated purse for the Golovkin-Jacobs fight increased to 60/40, because Jacobs is a champion and not just a regular contender. They feel that the larger split is fairer to their sides given Jacobs’ status as a world champion and not just a challenger. The WBA is still deciding on the purse split request by Jacob’s management, and they’ll be making a decision whether to increase the purse split if Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler doesn’t negotiate a deal with Jacobs’ management before then. The WBA will be letting Golvokin and Jacobs know what their decision is about Team Jacobs’ request for a larger percentage when /if it goes to a purse bid on October 22. Loeffler has already asked the WBA to start the purse bid early. The WBA instead extended the negotiations.
The venue for the Golvokin-Jacobs fight still has not been decided. Loeffler wants Madison Square Garden in New York. Jacobs’ management wants the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Jacobs is from Brooklyn, so it would give him a huge advantage to have the fight staged there. It would be the equivalents of Golovkin having the fight take place in his home country of Kazakhstan.
Ultimately, the venue for the Golovkin-Jacobs fight may end up being decided when or if the fight goes to a purse bid. This is likely not an issue that would be a deal breaker for either fighter. However, the purse split not being increased for Jacobs could be a deal breaker. The purse bid being won by Haymon or Showtime also could be something that would derail the fight if Golovkin is unable or unwilling to fight Jacobs on Showtime.
Mendoza feels confident that the two 160lb champions will try to negotiate the fight. However, Mendoza has a backup plan if Golovkin or Jacobs vacates their WBA titles. Mendoza will have #1 WBA contender Alfonso Blanco (12-0, 5 KOs) step in and fight whoever is left as the WBA champion, be it Golovkin or Jacobs. Obviously, that’s a much less appealing fight than Golovkin-Jacobs. Blanco isn’t well-known to the U.S boxing fans, and he’s unproven as a pro. He was a good amateur, but he’s done little to rate a No.1 ranking by the World Boxing Association.
“We’re not talking about that,” Mendoza said to RingTV.com about the possibility of Golovkin or Jacobs vacating their WBA titles if they can’t negotiate the fight. “Honestly, we’ll have to wait but GGG wants to be the middleweight champion and I don’t think he’d want to vacate any of his titles and I think that’s the same for Jacobs. This will establish the top middleweight.”
It’s difficult to imagine that the 34-year-old Golovkin will vacate his WBA title if the negotiations take a sour turn. However, Golovkin may be forced to vacate his WBA title if the fight goes to purse bid and Jacobs’s manager Al Haymon or Showtime Boxing wins the bid. Haymon would likely televise the fight on Showtime. That’s not going to work at all for Golovkin, who is under contract with HBO. You would have to wonder why Showtime or Haymon would even want to bid on the fight if there’s a high chance that it will result in Golovkin vacating. They would be stuck with televising a fight between Jacobs and Blanco. That’s a decent fight, but it might not be worth whatever the winning bid is in the purse bid. In other words, Jacobs vs. Blanco is not a big fight. You can argue it’s a step down from Jacobs’ recent match against Sergio Mora. Blanco may or may not be a better fighter than the 36-year-old Mora, but he’s not as well known in the U.S. If the idea is to fight guys that bring in the most ratings for Showtime, then Jacobs-Blanco is not a good fight for the network, especially if they pay a lot of money to win a purse bid for what they think will be a Jacobs vs. Golovkin fight.
Mendoza offered Golovkin and Jacobs a chance to take an interim fight before they meet up to face each other. Golovkin was not interested in an interim fight. It’s unclear whether Jacobs wants that. There’s been rumors that Jacobs wants an interim fight before facing Golovkin, but it looks like that’s going to be a nonstarter with Golovkin, who definitely wants to get the Jacobs fight out of the way now rather than putting it off until 2017.
“I was just trying to accommodate everyone’s interests,” Mendoza said about him offering the option of Golovkin and Jacobs taking an interim fight. “But at the end of the day, that was not a final decision. It was just an idea. That’s not going to happen right now. That’s off the table.”