By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions are reportedly in the process of putting together the finishing touches of negotiations between welterweight Frankie Gomez (20-0, 13 KOs) and 35-year-old Mauricio Herrera (22-5, 7 KOs) for the undercard of the HBO pay-per-view fight between WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Amir Khan.
Both Herrera and Gomez are moving up in weight to 147. Gomez, 24, already moved up in weight a couple of fights ago after struggling to make the 140lb division weight limit. However, Gomez came in at 150 for his fight against Jorge Silva last October, and you have to wonder how long he’ll be able to make weight for the 147lb division.
I’m sure Golden Boy wants to try to keep Gomez at 147 somehow, because that division gives him his best and possibly his only chance of being a major player.
Gomez doesn’t have the speed or the right frame to be contesting in the 154lb division against the likes of Erislandy Lara and the Charlo brothers.
Golden Boy was previously looking to match Herrera against Lucas Matthysse on the Canelo-Khan card, but Matthysse pulled out of the card due to a lingering eye injury from his last fight against Viktor Postol from last October.
Matthysse was stopped in the 10th round by Postol unfortunately. Not having Matthysse to face Herrera is a real disappointment because he’s a better known fighter than the young 24-year-old Gomez, and arguably a more talented fighter as well. Golden Boy has high hopes for Gomez, but he hasn’t shown the kind of talent yet that would suggest that he’s going to make big things happen in his career.
If Gomez could have stayed at 140, he might have been a Brandon Rios/Canelo type of fighter. In other words, a guy that uses weight to dominate lighter fighters and get over. But with Gomez moving up to welterweight after struggling to make the 140lb division weight limit, his future is very uncertain at this point. The guys at 147 are bigger, faster and better fighters than the opposition that Gomez would have had to deal with at 140.
Gomez also won’t be able to depend on his size as much in the 147lb division like he could at 140, because he’s not as huge for the division. If Gomez keeps growing, he might fill out enough to be a Canelo type of fighter, and then use his weight to crush lighter welterweights. For that to happen, Gomez will need to be able to get good at dehydrating huge amounts of weight to make the 147lb limit, and then rehydrate up to the upper 160s. That’s not easy to do. The fighters that can do that have a huge advantage over their opponents in their weight classes. If they can do this for a long period of time, like we’ve been seeing with Canelo, then they can find a lot of success.
“We’re working on the fight but it’s not done,” Golden Boy Promotions match-maker Eric Gomez said via ESPN.com. “It will be on the card if we are able to get it done.”
Gomez is already scheduled to fight on June 4 on the Orlando Salido vs. Francisco Vargas card on HBO. However, it looks like he’ll be pulled off that card in order for him to fight Herrera on the Canelo-Khan card instead. That’s the card that Golden Boy needs to stack in order to increase the PPV buys.
Besides the Gomez-Herrera fight that Golden Boy is looking to add to the Canelo vs. Khan card, they’re also working on adding unbeaten interim WBA heavyweight champion Luis “The Real King Kong” Ortiz (25-0, 22 KOs) vs. Alexander Ustinov 33-1, 24 KOs) to the card. It’s unclear whether Golden Boy will be able to add this interesting fight to the card.
Ustinov, 39, might have other ideas for how he wants to get a world title shot. Going through the tough as nailed 6’4”, 242lb Ortiz might not be the best way to a world title for someone like Ustinov. The southpaw Ortiz has been breezing through his opposition like it was butter, and he’s looking very hard to beat right now.
According to Rafael, former IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux is a possibility for the Canelo-Khan card. However, with Lemieux failing to make weight for his recently scheduled fight against James De La Rosa this month on March 12, it might not be a great idea to have Lemieux on the card unless Golden Boy schedules him for a fight at super middleweight.
You don’t want to schedule Lemieux for a middleweight bout and then see him weight in at 165 again. Lemieux was supposed to be fighting De La Rosa at a catch-weight of 163, but Lemieux came in at 165. The fight was then called off. De La Rosa said on Twitter that Lemieux never even attempted to make the weight. If Golden Boy is okay with scheduling Lemieux for a super middleweight fight, then I think it would be safe to add him to the card. But if they schedule him for a fight at 160 or even at a catch-weight of 163, I think it would be a risky thing to do.
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