By Tim Fletcher: Gennady Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler says he has a contract for Golovkin to fight the winner of the May 7 fight between WBC middleweight champion Saul Canelo Alvarez and Amir Khan.
Loeffler says it’s in writing that Golovkin will get to fight the winner of that fight. The winner has 15 days to decide whether they want to take the fight with Golovkin or not. If they choose not to, then they’ll either vacate the WBC title or be stripped of it.
Golovkin would then either be given the vacant WBC title or fight for it against the next highest ranked contender available. In this case it would be #1 WBC Jorge Sebastian Heiland.
“It’s not a verbal. Everything is in writing, signed by our side, by the Golden Boy side and the WBC,” Loeffler said to fighthype.com. “We have a good relationship with Golden Boy and a lot of respect for Canelo. It was part of allowing the voluntary defence they requested.”
Loeffler is seeing this from the side of Golovkin just wanting to grab the WBC middleweight title at all costs, even if it means taking the belt if Canelo vacates or is stripped of the title for failing to face Golovkin. What Loeffler is failing to realize is that if Golovkin can’t get the winner of the Canelo-Khan fight, then he’ll be winning an empty title without much meaning.
Golovkin needs to fight the winner of the Canelo-Khan fight in order to win more boxing fans. It’s not going to help Golovkin if he picks up a vacant WBC title or if he beats someone like Heiland to win it. Golovkin will not be helped if he can’t fight the winner of the Canelo vs. Khan fight. Golovkin will be right back where he started from being stuck fighting obscure fighters like Willie Monroe Jr., Dominic Wade, Martin Murry and all the rest of the little known fighters that Golovkin has been beating.
Just because Loeffler has a contract stating that GGG can fight the winner of the Canelo-Khan fight doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. Khan has already said he’s not sure he’ll bother staying at middleweight if he beats Canelo to win the WBC 160lb title. Khan doesn’t see himself as a middleweight. He’s just moving up to the division temporarily to fight the highly popular Canelo at a catch-weight of 155lbs.
Khan is taking the fight because he wants to test himself against one of the most popular fighters in the sport. Khan didn’t move up to middleweight to necessarily fight the very best guy. If he had done that, then he would probably have tried to get a fight against Golovkin. This is more about Khan fighting the most popular guy but not necessarily the best. Khan is making a smart move in doing this, but I don’t think he’s going to stay at middleweight to fight a guy like Golovkin, because he’s not super popular.
“Everything is mandated. The winner of Canelo v Khan has 15 days to commit to fighting Gennady or not. If they commit then we’ll start negotiating to put that fight together,” Loeffler said. “It’s so hard to get an opponent in the ring with Gennady. If I stopped working with certain people, it’d be even less.”
Canelo will try and put a fight together with Golovkin, but if he doesn’t agree to his catch-weight of 155lbs, then I don’t think the fight will take place. Canelo will very likely vacate the belt if Golovkin insists on fighting at 160. It would be smart for Golovkin and Loeffler to see that they don’t have a choice in the matter.
Golovkin and his trainer Abel Sanchez have been doing a lot of talking lately about how they see the fight needing to take place at 160. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Instead of complaining about Canelo wanting to fight at 155 and trying to shame him, they need to agree right now to fighting at that weight if they want to fight him.
If their focus is just on winning a vacant WBC title that Canelo gives up, then they’re taking the right approach by insisting the fight take place at 160. But I fail to see how losing a fight against Canelo will help Golovkin’s popularity? He needs that fight, and if all he has to do to get it is to agree to fight Canelo at 155, then he should agree to it.
I think it’s childish for Golovkin and his management to insist on fighting Canelo at 160. He’s the popular champion, and he’s taken over for Floyd Mayweather Jr. as the most popular fighter in the sport. If Canelo wants the fight to take place at 155, then Golovkin needs to agree to that and be happy that they’re getting a chance at all to fight him. A fight against Canelo will help make Golovkin a more popular fighter even if he loses. If Golovkin doesn’t fight Canelo, then he’s going to be stuck fighting the lesser known guys for years. I don’t think Golovkin will ever get fighters like Daniel Jacobs, Peter Quillin or Billy Joe Saunders to fight him because he’s not a pay-per-view fighter like Canelo, and he cannot come up with huge money to lure those guys into taking the fight.
There’s a pecking order in the sport. Canelo is clearly at the top of the sport as the No.1 pay-per-view attraction. Golovkin is down below guys like Miguel Cotto and other fighters. There’s such a huge difference between where Canelo is in the pecking order and Golovkin. That’s why it’s important that Golovkin and his promoter Loeffler realize what level they occupy in the hierarchy. They are not on the same level as Canelo. Boxing is business and popularity related and not just about sport. If you don’t have the popularity needed to get a 50-50 deal with someone like Canelo, which Golovkin clearly doesn’t have, then you need to bend to the wishes of the fighter. The mistake that Golovkin and his team are making is that they’re acting like they’re on the same level as Canelo when they’re not. Canelo realizes they’re not and that’s why he’s going to stay firm with whatever he’s asking them to do. If Golovkin fails to agree to the catch-weight of 155, then he won’t get the fight.
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