Golovkin’s team ready for Saunders negotiations

By Boxing News - 09/19/2017 - Comments

Image: Golovkin’s team ready for Saunders negotiations

By Jim Dower: WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders could finally be getting the big unification match against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin that he’s been talking about for so long.

Golovkin has an open slot on his fight schedule for December, and Saunders an option for him if it makes sense financially to put the fight together.

Besides Saunders, Miguel Cotto is also an option for Golovkin’s December fight, although that’s a much harder fight to put together. Cotto’s history of wanting catch-weights when fighting at middleweight could make it impossible for him to get Golovkin or David Lemieux to fight him. Those guys are too big to be fighting at catch-weights. Cotto may need to fight lightweight Mikey Garcia in December if he isn’t on board with fight at the full weight of 160 lbs. for the Golovkin fight. Putting together a fight financially between Canelo and GGG might be tough as well. If Cotto insists on taking the lion’s share of the revenue the way that Canelo did, it might make it untenable for Golovkin to give him the fight.

Golovkin is coming off of a disappointing 12 round draw last Saturday night against Golden Boy fighter Saul Canelo Alvarez in Las Vegas, Nevada. The opinions on who won the fight appear to be well divided, but generally, Golovkin was viewed as the guy that deserved to have his hand raised at the end of it. You’d probably rather be Golovkin today than Canelo, who is seen as a guy that was given a draw because of his popularity rather than what he did inside the ring.

“Weekend is out the way, back to good food today and back in camp next week. GGG, well done champ for Saturday. You ready? Because I am all of the belts,” said Saunders via the dailystar.co.uk.

Saunders beat Willie Monroe Jr. last Saturday by a 12 round unanimous decision. There was no controversy in that fight. It was a reliable performance by Saunders with him using his power and boxing skills to outwork Monroe over 12 rounds. Saunders didn’t have to do much to get the win over Monroe Jr. as he looked like he didn’t want to win badly enough to put up much of a fight.

If it were up to Golovkin, he would fight Alvarez in a rematch in December, but Canelo has already stated that he wants to take the rest of the year off and return next year in May for his next fight. That leaves GGG with Cotto or Saunders as his possible opponent for December. Cotto would bring the most money, but he would be the harder fight to put together. Saunders has the WBO title that Golovkin craves, but he’s not a big name in the U.S and the boxing fans won’t be too excited about seeing a fight between them.

Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler is ready to do the rematch with Canelo as long as they don’t have to wait for years for that to take place.

“There are no issues to doing a rematch. I just hope it takes Canelo and Golden Boy less time to do it than it did to make this fight,” said Loeffler. “Enough drama, let’s get them back into the ring. Gennady is a true champion. He runs from no one.”

Canelo wants to rest after his grueling fight with Golovkin. This was by far the toughest fight of Canelo’s career, and this was with him on the move for 12 rounds. Canelo had never taken punishment in his past fights. If Canelo had stayed in the pocket for the entire fight in the “Mexican style” that Golovkin wanted him to use, it would have been a lot harder for him.