By Dan Ambrose: WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (23-0, 12 KOs) is saying that IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) and his promoter is going to need to increase the original offer if they want him to agree to a fight against him. Saunders says either they increase the offer to him or agree to come to the UK to fight him so that he has the hometown advantage.
According to Saunders, the offer that Golovkin’s management made to him is no more than the money he would get if he were to fight a rematch against #1 WBA Chris Eubank Jr., who Saunders already beat in 2014 by a 12 round decision.
Golovkin’s management are kind of in a tough spot in terms of money, because a fight against Saunders wouldn’t likely be a pay-per-view money on HBO. Without the fight against Saunders being on pay-per-view, it would prove difficult for Golovkin’s management to dig up huge wads of cash to pay Saunders big money, especially if he wants somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 million pounds [$6.5 million].
“If I take the fight with Golovkin I genuinely believe I could beat him but they have got to put some proper money on the table and if they do that then I will do it,” Saunders said to ESPN.com. “I could earn that money against someone else. They’ve got to pay me more money than I would get for the Chris Eubank Jr rematch.”
It is perfectly reasonable for Saunders to want as much money as he can get, because he has not shown in the past that he is in the same league as Golovkin. Saunders barely beat Andy Lee in his last fight in December in winning a 12 round decision by the scores of 114-112, 115-111 and 113-113. The fight was close enough to be scored a draw. Saunders also barely beat Eubank Jr. by a 12 round split decision in November 2014. The thing is Golovkin would likely make easy work of both Lee and Eubank Jr.
“An offer has been made but people need to understand I don’t have a loss on my record and it’s not like Golovkin’s last opponent David Lemieux who had lost twice before he fought him,” Saunders said.
Saunders is going off in the wrong direction to be comparing himself with David Lemieux when justifying why he should receive a bigger money offer from Golovkin’s management. I think Lemieux might actually be more than good enough to beat a fighter like Saunders. It would be a tough fight for Saunders, to be sure. He would not have the punching power to keep Lemieux off him the way Golovkin did.
If you can’t keep Lemieux off of you, he’s going to pound you with heavy shots until you drop. Saunders does not have the popularity in the United States to be getting big money. A fight between Saunders and Golovkin cannot be put on PPV unless HBO wants to stick it on there and watch it sink. It is a worse fight than Golovkin-Lemieux for PPV in my opinion.
At least some casual boxing fans knew whom Lemieux was going into his fight with Golovkin last October. I think you would be hard-pressed to find more than a small handful of casual boxing fans in the U.S. that know who Saunders is.
“Now I’m world champion I’ve got options and I could make my money elsewhere. Most definitely the fight with Golovkin will happen at some point,” Saunders said.
Saunders’ options are rather limited in terms of big money fights. He can take on Andy Lee or Chris Eubank Jr. again in rematches, or face the little known contenders the World Boxing Organization has ranked in their top 15. There’s nobody like Miguel Cotto or Saul “Canelo” Alvarez ready to step forward to challenge Saunders and give him a big payday. Those guys wouldn’t care enough about winning Saunders’ WBO title in order to fight him.
Only Golovkin cares for some reason. He seems to want to win all the titles at middleweight in order to validate his career. What he doesn’t seem to realize is that the casual boxing fans don’t care about whether he wins all the titles at middleweight or not. The casual fans just want to see knockouts and good fights. Canelo and Cotto seem to understand that. Golovkin doesn’t. If he did, guys like Saunders would have no power over him because he would ignore him because there’s no upside in facing Saunders. The casual fans in America don’t know who Saunders is, and a win over him would hold as much value as a win over little known Americans like Willie Monroe Jr.
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