By Dan Ambrose: The Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. fight is expected to be decided next week after the New Years. The offer of $6M has already been made to the 30-year-old Chavez Jr. and it’s now just a wait and see for Canelo and his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions.
The $6 million also includes a cut of the PPV revenue from the HBO sales for the fight, which will take place on May 6 on the Cinco de Mayo holiday. It’s debatable how much interest there will be from the U.S boxing fans in a Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. fight because it’s a fight that is past it’s sell by date.
The time for Canelo to fight Chavez Jr. was four years ago before Sergio Martinez schooled Chavez Jr. in taking his WBC middleweight title. By Canelo and Golden Boy now being interested in making the fight against Chavez Jr, it reeks of another Canelo vs. James Kirkland type of mismatch. Kirkland was a fighter whose career was going places many years ago, but by the time Canelo fought him in 2015, Kirkland’s career had gone downhill. The fight was six years too late.
Now, Golden Boy is looking to match Canelo against another fighter whose career is in the past with them being interested in matching him against Chavez Jr. You have to wonder who will be next for Golden Boy to target for Canelo if/when he beats Chavez Jr. Do they target 40-year-old Sergio Martinez? He’s now retired and hasn’t fought since his loss to Miguel Cotto.
Speaking of Cotto, he’s another aging fighter that Golden Boy matched Canelo against not long ago. Golden Boy plans on putting Canelo back in with Cotto next December despite the fact that Canelo already beat him. The match-making being done by Golden Boy seems to be focused on putting Canelo in with guys that are no longer relevant or aging fighters that they’re confident he can beat.
The fighter the boxing fans want to see Canelo in with is IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, but there’s no telling when that fight is going to be made. Golden Boy CEO Oscar De La Hoya is talking about matching Canelo against Golovkin in September 2017, but he’s also saying that he needs to agree to a flat fee offer for the fight rather than a percentage of the earnings from the fight.
That’s not much of a deal. Golovkin could end up with a lot less money from the Canelo fight if he agrees to a percentage cut.
“Yes, we want to make the fight for Chavez, we will give all the attention this year, and the week that we enter we will make a decision, so soon the talks are going well and we will continue talking,” said Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez via canal44.com. “What I can say is that there is still no fight, we are working hard, making all the effort, it is the fight that ‘Canelo’ wants, we are in talks and we will see, we will talk again today and continue until we have a Yes, “Eric Gomez said.
If the fight against Chavez Jr. isn’t made for the 26-year-old, then Golden Boy is expected to setup a fight between Canelo and WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders for May 6. Golden Boy has already requested to the World Boxing Organization to have Canelo placed as the No.1 challenger to Saunders at middleweight, and it’s been accepted by the sanctioning body.
They placed Canelo at No.1 in the WBO’s 160lb rankings, ahead of Avtandil Khurtsidze. If Canelo fights Chavez Jr. instead, the WBO will need to make the decision whether to keep Canelo as their No.1 or go ahead and let Khurtsidze take the fight as Saunders’ new WBO mandatory.
It would be difficult for Saunders to have to sit it out and wait until the second half of 2017 before making his next defense of his WBO title. He already was out of the ring for 12 months after winning the WBO title in December 2015 over Andy Lee. Saunders finally made his first defense of his title against Artur Akavov on December 3, winning a controversial 12 round unanimous decision in Paisley, Scotland.
If Saunders is allowed to wait until the second half of 2017 to fight Canelo rather than Khurtsidze, it’s not going to sit right with a lot of boxing fans. If Canelo is going to pass on the Saunders fight by taking on Chavez Jr. instead, then a new mandatory challenger should be allowed to fight Saunders if he’s not interested in taking the fight. If the WBO lets Canelo take the Chavez Jr. and still get the mandatory shot at Saunders, it’s going to make some boxing angry.
Canelo plans on fighting just three times in 2017. Those fights are in May, September and December against Chavez Jr., Golovkin and Cotto. However, it’s highly possible that Canelo will wind up fighting Saunders in September rather than Golovkin if Golden Boy chooses to stick with the lump sum flat fee that they’re offering the Kazakhstan fighter.
Even if Golovkin agrees to the flat fee, there’s no telling whether the Canelo fight will get made or not. If Golden Boy doesn’t want that fight for Canelo, then they can always put another hurdle in front of GGG to keep the fight from taking place. It’s up to Golen Boy and Canelo whether they want to fight Golovkin or not in 2017. If they do, then the fight can get made. If not, then it probably won’t get made.
Golovkin might be able to help himself get the Canelo fight if he looks poor in his next match against WBA ‘regular’ middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs on March 18 on HBO PPV from Madison Square Garden in New York. If Golovkin gets knocked down a couple of times by Jacobs and badly struggles to get a win, then he might be able to improve his chances of getting Canelo and Golden Boy to take the fight. But if Golovkin looks sensational in destroying Jacobs, who has a history of a chin problem, then we night not see the Canelo-Golovkin fight until 2018 or later, depending on how Golovkin looks in future fights.