By Dan Ambrose: Frank Warren, the promoter for WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders, says the negotiations with IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin are presently up in the air due in part to the Kazakhstan fighter being injured. Golovkin’s injury is holding up him signing the contract for the Saunders fight. Some boxing fans might believe that this is a stalling tactic by Golovkin and his team to give them more time to negotiate a fight against Saul Canelo Alvarez. Team Golovkin should already know by now whether they’ll be able to get a fight against Canelo in September.
It’s unclear when and how the injury occurred, but it’s possible that this is an injury that GGG sustained in his fight last month against Daniel Jacobs on March 18. Warren wants to complete the negotiations with Golovkin and his promoter for a fight in June. They can’t do it right now because of the injury. Warren feels that they have to wait until after May 6th, which is when Saul Canelo Alvarez faces Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in Las Vegas, Nevada. Golovkin and his promoter Tom Loeffler are hoping to put together a fight between Triple G and Canelo for September. If they do that, then it’s quite possible that Golovkin may skip the Saunders unification fight and wait until September to face Canelo.
“At the moment they’re saying Golovkin is injured,” said Saunders’ promoter Frank Warren to BoxNation. “So we’ll see where all this is going. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve agreed to terms, so much so that we made one interim fight, we paid a guy to step aside to make it all happen. We’ve done all we can to deliver that fight. Bill deserves it. He’s been let down by dare I say Eubanks. One thing about Bill, he’s got his pen in his inside pocket. He’ll sign to fight anybody. We’re not going to know until after May 6th what’s going to happen. It’s all up in the air at the moment and we’re trying to resolve it,” said Warren.
There’s still a month to go before the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight. If Golovkin and Loeffler are going to let Golden Boy dictate to them about whether they can take a fight against Saunders, then that’s not a good sign for Golovkin. Canelo and Golden Boy will still want the fight with Golovkin even if he fights Saunders in June. They should at least still want to fight him.
What we don’t know is how serious Golden Boy and Canelo are in fighting Golovkin this year. Using the Saunders fight as an excuse not to fight Golovkin in 2017, it would show that they weren’t ever interested in the first place in making that fight. If this was Chavez Jr. or Miguel Cotto wanting to fight in June against Saunders, I cannot see that as a reason for Golden Boy and Canelo not fighting one of them in September. They’d still likely make the fight in a second. Moreover, I doubt that Golden Boy would even bother telling those two fighters that they shouldn’t fight in June.
Tyson Fury update
Former heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) says he’s still not sure when he’ll be returning to the ring. The 29-year-old Fury says he hasn’t gotten back into the gym yet to resume his training for his comeback. Fury hasn’t fought in close to 2 years since beating Wladimir Klitschko in 2015. Fury has put on a lot of weight, and he’ll need to lose all the weight. Fury’s weight looks very heavy. He recently said he’s weighing in the 300s, and it appears that he was serious. His upper body has a lot of fat that will need to come off if he’s to return to the ring.
“Let’s just say big papa never reveals,” said a very heavy looking Tyson Fury to BoxNation when asked when he’ll be returning to the boxing ring to resume his career. “You never can tell, can you? I’m still the Ring Magazine champion,” said Fury.
Fury won’t stay the Ring Magazine champion for too much longer if he doesn’t return to the ring soon. The organization isn’t going to free Fury as their permanent champion at heavyweight. Fury needs to come back and start fighting again. Before he can do that, Fury will need to get his boxing license boxing from the British Boxing Board of Control, and then lose weight he’s put on. Fury has packed on weight in the past, but never to this extent. One good thing that Fury has going for him is his size. He’s a tall fighter, and his height and reach will always give his opposition problems. Even if Fury isn’t able to regain the form that he once had, he’ll still likely be a very good fighter if he can stay in the gym between fights and not let his weight get out of control again.
Amir Khan picks Andre Berto to beat Shawn Porter
Amir Khan is picking his gym mate Andre Berto to defeat former IBF welterweight champion Shawn “Showtime” Porter (26-2-1, 16 KOs) in their fight on April 22 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The Berto-Porter fight will be televised on Showtime Championship Boxing.
Berto (31-4, 24 KOs) is coming off a 4th round knockout win over Victor Ortiz last year. That victory has some boxing fans thinking that Berto has enough left in his tank to defeat the younger 29-year-old Porter. A lot of fans see Porter as being too young and too active for Berto, who has lost a number of his recent fights in defeats against Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero and Jesus Soto Karass. The only guys that Berto has beaten were guys like Ortiz and Josesito Lopez. Those fringe level fighters. They’re not the really talented fighters in the current era.
Mayweather took a lot of criticism for fighting Berto in his last fight in 2015. Mayweather justified taking the fight by saying that Berto had a fine win over Josesito Lopez. Mayweather’s criticism disagreed with his decision to take that fight, because Berto’s win over Lopez was against a fighter that is no longer among the top guys in the division.
“Berto is looking strong,” said Khan to Fighthype.com about Andre Berto in his preparation for his fight against Shawn Porter on April 22. “He’s looking on fire. It’s going to be a great fight. It’s going to be a hard fight, because Porter comes to fight. It’s the way he fights. I just think Berto is going to do a good job on him. It’s going to be a close fight, but I just think Berto has got the fight. I think that’s one thing people don’t realize, Berto is a great fighter and he can bang. He’s an impressive fighter, and just be patient,” said Khan.
“You just have to keep picking him off,” said Khan about Porter. “You’re going to be frustrated. Just stay calm. Keep him moving and moving. Keep him moving his feet. If you stand there with him, it’s going to be a dog fight. If you keep moving, hit side to side, it is going to be a hard fight, but Berto is going to be great on his feet in this fight. Hit and move. I know the power he’s got as well,” said Khan about Berto. Shawn comes running in, he gets hit with one of those big shots, he’s going to be hurt,” said Khan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4RQdeiL2eI