By Robert “Big Moe” Elmore: For the past few weeks Gennady Golovkin’s (Trip) camp had been laying down heavy fire power in the media concerning a potential fight with Andre Ward. I waited to see if someone outside of Ward was going to reply with further details and they did. You can find these quotes and details on the internet. With all the information released, I can analyze the situation better. K2’s promoter, Tom Loeffler, said Ward’s people sent over an offer when they (Ward’s camp) already knew about the upcoming unification match against David Lemieux.
Executive from Roc Nation Michael Yormack responded supporting Andre’s Ward claims that GGG’s people rejected a fight stating that GGG’s camp turned down the fight in 36 minutes. Yormack also said that GGG’s camp didn’t give them the opportunity to talk about purse splits, fight location, etc. Ward’s next fight is fight will be at light heavyweight thus setting up a future fight with Sergi Kovalev. But this all comes down to two things. One, letting the fight build. Two, business and leverage.
GGG’s people turning down Roc Nation’s offer was simply a business move and nothing more. They want as much leverage as they can get going to the negotiating table should these two parties actually sit down and meet. The pay per view move is risky, but brilliant. It’s brilliant because they know that Ward has been out of the ring for quite some time while they have kept Trip busy fighting. Trip will be headlining his first pay per view card while Ward is looking to be on the under card of Cotto/Canelo. I don’t expect the GGG/Lemieux fight to bust the box office wide open. If the fight can produce anywhere between 300k-400k, then Loeffler can use that as leverage. Meanwhile, Ward is looking to fight on the undercard of Miguel Cotto/Saul Alvarez bout. It’s good for notoriety purposes, but he’s not headlining. So if the two parties meet sometime in the first quarter of next year, Loeffler can say “We are the A side because we did 350k in pay per view buys and this much money in domestic sales in the Lemieux fight. What do you have”? At the same time, it’s risky for a couple reasons.
First, they have to win. A loss takes away any leverage they have now. Two, what Trip is banking on is the winner of the Cotto/Canelo fight giving them a match. Trip is the mandatory challenger to Cotto’s WBC title. Should Canelo win, Trip will be waiting for a while to unify all three belts. Oscar De La Hoya, Canelo’s promoter stated that a GGG/Canelo fight wouldn’t take place for two years. If Cotto is the winner, then who knows if the WBC will use their muscle to make Cotto fight Trip. So there would a great opportunity to talk to Ward’s people. Ward doesn’t have any leverage at this time because of inactivity. His battles with Goosen Promotions and injuries have kept him from the ring. It has been confirmed that they are permanently moving to light heavyweight and that negotiations to fight Kovalev is already in the works. Ward claims he can still make 168. In his fight with Paul Smith, he tipped the scale at 172 (only three pounds above 168). But I believe the fight is building and the two will eventually fight sometime next year. The fight will more than likely take place on neutral grounds and produce roughly 400k.
The knock on GGG is that he willing to go to 168 to fight Carl Froch (now retired) and Julio Cesar Chavez, but they asked to fight Ward at a catch weight of 164. From one perspective, one could say Trip’s people knew that Ward was moving up to light heavyweight and that he was having a little trouble making 168. Others might say that the request was simply made because they know that what they are getting skill wise when talking about Ward.
From another perspective, one could say they had a right to ask because Trip has been busy fighting while Ward has not. Scared or not, those moves by Loeffler were strictly business moves. For the fight with Froch, it would have been a pay per view event and not on regular TV like Ward/Froch was. The same goes for Chavez and that fight was going to be Vegas. If GGG, wins either and the pay per view numbers do well, this further adds to his argue to who the A side should be. But those plans went up in smoke when Chavez lost to Fonfara and Froch retired. The fight will happen, but it will be a matter of gets the most leverage.
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