By Allan Fox: WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders is not a happy camper that Gennady Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler hasn’t had his fighter sign the contract for a unification fight in June, and he says he’s going to be moving on. Saunders says Loeffler was supposed to send out a contract. He has a message that supposedly came from Loeffler saying he would send the contract over 2 weeks ago. Saunders is now starting to sound and look desperate for the fight, and he’s going to move on.
Just where Saunders will move to is the big question. He has a mandatory defense due against Avtandil Khurtsidze. The World Boxing Organization might not allow Saunders to take another voluntary defense. That would look odd if Saunders were to take a voluntary defense after being ordered to face his mandatory challenger. A unification fight is a different story, since the sanctioning bodies usually let those type of fights go ahead.
“Just before his last fight dates are their ‘ @GGGBoxing [expletive] house ‘ moving on with me career 👁👁💩 I didn’t see no contract still 😱#WBOKing,” said Saunders on his Twitter.
Saunders should hang in there and wait until Loeffler speaks up about the Golovkin fight, because he may ultimately choose to make the fight if given enough time. It appears that Loeffler is trying to get a deal quickly put together with Golden Boy for the Canelo fight. Saunders appears to be the backup plan if Loeffler can’t get a deal done with Golden Boy.
Golovkin has been given what appears to be a warning from Saul Canelo Alvarez’s promoter Oscar De La Hoy about the Canelo-Golovkin fight being in jeopardy for September if he takes the fight with Saunders in June. Loeffer was saying on Thursday that he’s not been told that by Eric Gomez of Golden Boy. The fact that Loeffler hasn’t gone ahead and had GGG sign the contract for the Saunders fight might be seen to some as an indication that Loeffler is taking the warning from De La Hoya seriously. If he didn’t, then he surely wouldn’t let Saunders move on.
Golovkin might not ever get another chance like this to win all the belts. If Golovkin loses to Canelo, then he would need to start all over again in collecting all the titles, and he may not be able to do it. If Saunders loses the WBO title to someone else, then there’s no way of knowing if Golovkin will get a chance at fighting them unless he gives them a great deal. You can bet that whoever gets a hold of the WBO title, they’ll make sure their promoter hammers out a great deal with Loeffler, because they’ll know how much GGG wants the WBO belt.
“If you don’t fight Billy Joe Saunders today, this is your last chance you’re going to get,” said Saunders in a video at Fighthype.com. “I’m going to have to ring my manager up today. I have a message from Tom Loeffler on my phone, saying the contracts were going to be sent 2 weeks ago, and they still haven’t been sent. So if you want to get it on, let’s get it on, unification, winner takes all. I’m willing to go to your country and fight. Don’t lose your pen,” said Saunders.
