By Sean Jones: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) says he wants his first fight in 2018 to be his “tiebreaker” rematch against Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs). Canelo says he still believes he deserved the win in his fight with the unbeaten Triple G on September 16 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Canelo will be making the decision for his promoters at Golden Boy Promotion to take the rematch with Golovkin, and for when the fight will take place. Golden Boy started negotiations with Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler last Friday. The date of the rematch is likely to be in May.
This week, Golovkin was elevated to No.1 in Ring Magazine’s pound-for-pound rating. Canelo is currently No.6 in the Ring’s pound for pound ratings. Ring Magazine factored in the wide scale belief that Golovkin deserved the 12-round decision over Canelo.
The vast majority of the boxing fans disagree with the Golden Boy Promotions star Canelo, as they saw him as the loser, who was given a 12-round draw that he didn’t deserve. Even now, the oddball scoring by 2 of the 3 judges selected to work the Canelo-GGG fight by the Nevada State Athletic Commission is being second-guessed by the fans that saw the fight and felt that Canelo didn’t come close to winning or deserving a draw.
2 of the judges, Adelaide Byrd and Don Trella, scored the fight 118-110 for Canelo and 114-114 even. The third judge scored the fight 115-113 for Golovkin. The boxing media on press row had Golovkin winning 116-112, which is the same score as Boxing News 24. Canelo vs. Golovkin looked like an easy fight to score. It’s unclear what happened with the 2 judges that failed to score the fight for Golovkin.
“I feel happy for what I did, and the people were happy with the fight and that’s what’s important,” said Alvarez to ESPN Deportes in discussing his fight with Golovkin. ”They want the rematch, and we’ll see. I’m enjoying a vacation, enjoying what I did, but what I want is that it’s the first fight [of 2018]. I do not want to fight any other than the tiebreaker and that’s what we’re going to try to do; make it the first fight of the year for Canelo, to be the tiebreaker,” said Canelo in talking in the third person.
Canelo vs. Golovkin brought in over $27 million at the gate, making it the 3rd highest gate in boxing history in Las Vegas behind only the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao and Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor fights. That’s quite an accomplishment for the Canelo-Gennady fight, as it shows how important the fight was to the fans. The difference between the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight compared to those two matches that brought in better numbers at the gate is the fact that Canelo and Golovkin were both in their prime, and were great fighters.
Pacquiao was arguably over-the-hill and with an injured shoulder in his fight with Mayweather in 2015. The Mayweather-Pacquiao fight was a terrible disappointment for the boxing fans, as it lacked action, and it painfully boring to watch. Mayweather’a fight with UFC fighter Conor McGregor was more of a circus fight involving a guy that had never fought in a boxing match before. Shockingly, the Mayweather vs. McGreogr event was given clearance to be a real professional fight after the Nevada State Athletic Commission sanctioned it, but in truth it was more of a glorified exhibition match involving fighters from 2 different sports than a real fight. Canelo and Golovkin were in their prime for their fight on September 16. The only thing that ruined it for the boxing fans was very weird way that 2 of the judges scored the Alvarez vs. GGG fight. It’s impossible to understand what the judges were thinking to score the fight 118-110 for Canelo and 114-114.
“I was always sad because I did not want it to end in a draw,” said Alvarez. ”Obviously, I felt like a winner but that’s boxing. One person said to me: ‘It’s okay; we do not know if you’re going to win, lose or tie other fighters we already know.’ And that’s what makes the big fights,” said Alvarez.
It doesn’t matter what Canelo thinks of his performance. It’s the fans that decide who wins and loses fights. The judges are meaningless in a large way. If a fighter appears to lose a fight and is saved by the judges, then the results of the fight is tainted if the boxing public disagrees with the decision. In this case, the fans completely disagreed with the Las Vegas judges that scored the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight. As such, Canelo was a given a draw that the fans saw as him not deserving. It doesn’t matter what Canelo thinks about him believing he won the fight. The problem is the fans thought he was given a draw that he didn’t rate.
It sounds good that Canelo wants his rematch with Golovkin to be his first fight of 2018, but what he’s failing to tell the boxing media and his fans is that fight won’t take place until May 5. That’s 8 months away from now. In other words, Canelo wants to take almost 1 year off from boxing before he returns to the ring. You can decipher that any way you want, but what it looks to me is Canelo is going to look to age GGG a little more by waiting until he’s 1-year older than he is right now before taking the fight.
Golovkin is 35-years-old, and he’ll be 36 on April 8 of next year, which means Canelo would be waiting until he ages almost 1 year before he makes the rematch. Is that an intentional ploy on Alvarez’s part to wait to make Triple G wait another year on top of the 2 years he already had to wait for their September 16 fight or is this a move to show that he’s the diva, and the A-side in the fight? I don’t know. I do know that Golovkin will need to decide whether he wants to continue to be dictated to by Canelo telling him when and where their fights are going to take place.
If Team Golovkin is being given no choice for the dates of his fight with Alvarez or the location of the fight, then it puts him in at a great disadvantage. Golden Boy wants the Canelo-GGG rematch to take place in Las Vegas. Golovkin wants the rematch to take place in New York or Texas, and he would like it to take place in December if possible. Guess which fighter will wind up getting his way? If Golovkin rejects the idea of fighting Canelo on his Mexican holiday weekend on May 5, he may end up losing the fight entirely or being made to wait even longer for the eventual rematch.
The good thing about the Golden Boy management of the company is they’re mature people. They’re not going to stubbornly walk away from a big money fight just because everything didn’t go completely their way in the negotiations. They’re capable of seeing the big picture and not acting in self-defeating ways like we see from some other promoters. But with that said, if Canelo is giving Golden Boy their marching orders of only taking a fight with Golovkin in May or September of 2018, then it leaves Team GGG only one real choice and that’s to take the fight in May.
There’s too much money to be made for Golovkin to walk away from the May 5 date. Besides that, Golovkin isn’t young enough to wait indefinitely for a rematch the way that Floyd Mayweather Jr. made Manny Pacquiao wait 6 years before finally fighting him in 2015. If Golovkin was the same age as Canelo at 27, he could tell him to forget fighting in May. Golovkin can’t do that. But what he’s got to hope is he can get a better financial deal for the second fight, being that he deserved the win in the first fight. The judges scoring the fight a draw seemingly helps Canelo get the same money split as the first fight. A win for Golovkin would have put him in the position to ask and be given a better split of the revenue in the rematch.
With the rematch likely taking place in Las Vegas and on a Mexican holiday, Golovkin might need to knock Canelo out this time to make sure he gets the win. With the venue and the date likely working in Canelo’s favor, Golovkin could need a knockout if he wants to avoid a second controversial decision result against the popular Mexican.
As for Canelo, I don’t think he’s cut out for the middleweight division. This is not a good division for the short 5’8” fighter. Canelo is too short to be a major player at middleweight in my opinion, and he can’t continue to be involved in controversial decisions. You can say easily that Canelo should have 4 defeats on his resume right now, not just 1. Canelo’s fights with the following fighters could have and should have been defeats in my view:
• Gennady Golovkin
• Miguel Cotto
• Erislandy Lara
• Austin Trout
Canelo is going to have just as many problems trying to beat the taller middleweights like Jermall Charlo, Danny Jacobs and Sergiy Derevyanchenko that he had against Golovkin. If Canelo can’t beat them without controversy, then what kind of fighter is he going to be in the 160-lb. division? It seems like a wiser move for Canelo to go back down to 154 or his catch-weight perch at 155, and continue to fight guys in those weight classes. Canelo can pick out middleweights if he wants, and drain them down to 155 for an advantage against them. He could also fight welterweights occasionally like he’d been doing until recently.