By Jeff Aranow: Gennady “GGG” Golovkin would be open to fighting either Saul “Canelo” Alvarez or Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in his next fight, says his promoter Tom Loeffler. They’re going to be sitting back and waiting for the outcome of the May 6th fight between Canelo and Chavez Jr. to see which of the two emerges as the winner. Loeffler says he would also very much like to make the Canelo-Golovkin fight this year if possible. Loeffler has been in contact with Canelo’s promoter Eric Gomez of Golden Boy Promotions since last November in trying to make the fight.
For whatever reason, Golden Boy wasn’t ready to put Canelo in with Golovkin last year. Loeffler is hoping that they’ll be ready to let the fight take place in September.
“I’ve been in contact with Eric Gomez of Golden Boy since last November trying to put together [a fight between Golovkin and Canelo],”said Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler to Fighthype.com. “If Canelo wins next week on May 6th, certainly we can make that fight happen. Golden Boy said they want to do it now. Last year, they preferred not to do it. There were a lot of fighters that didn’t want to fight Golovkin. Now hopefully we can put a deal together and if we can make that fight this year that would be the fight the fans are looking for in the middleweight division,” said Loeffler.
Getting the Canelo-Golovkin fight put together might not be easy. Golovkin is not in a good position to ask for a lot of money after his close 12 round decision over Danny Jacobs on March 18. The fight didn’t generate a lot of buys on HBO, and Golovkin had one of his worst performances of his career.
Golovkin needed to look good to put him in a great spot o get the fight with Canelo. He failed to do that. Now it’s going to be up to Loeffer to see if he can still put a fight together under less than ideal circumstances for him and GGG. A loss for Canelo against Chavez Jr. would strengthen Loeffler and Golovkin’s position at the bargaining table if Golden Boy is still interested in making the fight this year. It’s more likely that Golden Boy would kick the Golovkin fight down the road if Canelo gets beaten by Chavez Jr. Golden Boy would look to make a rematch between Canelo and Chavez Jr. so that their fighter could avenge his loss.
Loeffler briefly contemplated matching Golovkin against WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders on June 10 in Kazakhstan, but it was too fast of a turnaround for GGG to get back inside te ring after his tough 12 round win over Danny Jacobs. Loeffler didn’t want Golovkin to have to get back into training camp within 2 weeks of his fight with Jacobs, because he took a lot of punishment in that fight.
“We would do that fight and I’ve been in discussion with Frank Warren, but it was just too short of a turnaround time after the Jacobs fight,” said Loeffler. “It was a tough 12 round fight for both guys. Gennady was one of the only guys that could have that quick of a turnaround time, because he’s always been so active with his career. But he would hav ehd to have been in training camp for 2 weeks. It could have worn him out from a training perspective. He wants to unify and become the unified champion, but it didn’t happen. He’s going to take some time off. If we can make the Canelo fight, great. If we can make that fight, we’ll look for the best option at that point,” said Loeffler.
Fighting the loser of the Canelo-Chavez Jr. match might be a possible option for Golovkin if he can’t get the winner to agree to fight him next. However, there’s also a possibility that Golden Boy Promotions will stick Canelo and Chavez Jr. back inside the ring together to fight a rematch in September if the demand for the fight was high and it generates a lot of PPV buys. There’s a lot of money to be made by Golden Boy and Canelo in a second fight with Chavez Jr. if their fight on May 6th brings in the PPV numbers that they’re hoping it will.
Golden Boy can’t push the Chavez Jr. rematch down the road because Chavez Jr. is a vulnerable fighter that could get beaten in his next fight if he fails to train hard like he’s been doing in his fights since 2012. Chavez Jr. is one of those types of fighters that need to be highly motivated for him to train hard for a fight. He’s doing a good job for the Canelo fight because it’s such an important fight, but he might not be willing to do the same thing against a lesser name.
“I was contemplating to go to Kazakhstan in June,” said Loeffler to secondsout.com in talking about a fight between Golovkin and Billy Joe Saunders. “It was a rough 12 round fight with Jacobs, for both guys. Danny was wearing sunglasses afterwards. Gennady, it was the first time he ever gone 12 rounds. So it was too early of a turnaround to go back and fight again. So we’re going to take some time off right now and see what happens with Canelo. We’d really like Canelo or Chavez Jr. Certainly, Canelo would be a tremendous match-up, and something we’re definitely looking forward to,” said Loeffler.
It’s going to be up to Golden Boy to decide whether they want their golden goose Canelo to fight Golovkin this year. They’re doing a lot of talking right now of wanting to make the Canelo-Golovki fight, but that could be a name dropping tactic to help increase the buy rate for the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight. the more Golden Boy mentions Golovkni’s name the more likely tha the boxing public will order the Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. fight on HBO PPV. The fight has a lot of polarizing views from the boxing public, as many of them view the Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. fight as a money grab and not a true world class fight on PPV.
David Benavidez, one of Golovkin’s sparring partners for the Danny Jacobs fight, felt that GGG did enough to pull out the victory in that fight. Benavidez felt that Golovkin stopped Jacobs from using his offensive weapons by jabbing him effectively.
“Jacobs is the second best fighter in the middleweight division behind Triple G,” said Benavidez to K.O Artists Sports. “He has a lot of weapons of his own, but Golovkin was neutralizing them with that jab. It was an amazing fight. It went exactly how I thought it would go. It was a very tough fight for Golovkin. He pulled out the victory,” said Benavidez.
