By Jeff Aranow: WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (23-0, 12 KOs) says was never offered the reported $4 million to fight IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) for a proposed fight.
Saunders says instead of it being $4 million, it was only $1.5 million. This is why he chose not to take the fight. Saunders says that if he was offered $4m, he would have agreed to it rather than electing to fight Max Bursak (32-4-1, 15 KOs), who he’ll be facing on April 30 at the Copper Box Arena in London, UK.
If Saunders really did receive an offer of only $1.5 million for the Golovkin fight, then it makes sense for him to have turned down the fight. That’s not nearly enough to be worth taking the fight. That’s just not very much money for the risk involved in such a fight.
If all Saunders is going to get that kind of money, then it doesn’t make sense for him to ever fight Golovkin because he wouldn’t have a good chance of winning the fight. At least in facing guys like Bursak, Saunders can milk his title for a little while and possibly hang onto his belt for a year or two before he eventually loses the belt against one of the contenders in the division.
“I’ll go to America but these Americans have got to stop offering me [expletive] money to fight, people keep saying I got offered $4m to fight him. If I got $4m to fight Golovkin, I would be fighting him!” said Saunders via IFL TV.
Saunders’ problem is that Golovkin isn’t a pay-per-view attraction. Without the PPV money, Saunders will likely be unable to ever get big money to fight Golovkin. Even Golovkin likely isn’t going to make $4 million for a fight against someone like Saunders. For him to make that kind of money, Golovkin would need to fight someone along the lines of Floyd Mayweather Jr., Miguel Cotto or Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Those are the only big names that would enable GGG to make the big money. Carl Froch, a now retired former super middleweight from England, would be another name that Golovkin could get a big payday against if Froch were to come out of retirement.
“I want to be rewarded. I fought Andy Lee and took my chance. If you beat GGG by 2/3 rounds you’ll get robbed.,” said Saunders. “Let him come here… I’ve got to have one thing going by way, the only thing I want is home advantage.”
If all Saunders was offered was $1.5 million for the Golovkin fight, it’s doubtful that number will increase much in the future. That’s not very much. If Saunders is making considerably less than that for his fight against Bursak, then he needs to estimate how long he holds onto his title by milking it against the fringe contenders and the top challengers that the World Boxing Organization has in their top 15.
If it makes sense for him to milk his WBO title, then he should do that if all he’s getting for the Golovkin fight is chicken feed.
Saunders can probably make good money in a rematch against Chris Eubank Jr. Saunders already proved that he can beat Eubank Jr. two years ago in his 12 round decision win in 2014.
However, Eubank Jr. has improved a lot since that fight. It might prove difficult for Saunders to beat Eubank Jr. a second time around. Eubank Jr. doesn’t stop and admire his work like he used to do in the past after he throws his shots. Eubank Jr. now throws combinations and he moves backwards out of range after he throws his shots. There’s less showboating now from Eubank Jr. He’s matured a lot since his fight against Saunders.
Golovkin is the boogey man right now, and it’s not really worth it to fight him if the money isn’t going to be tremendous. Saunders is doing the right thing by turning down the money offered to him by Team Golovkin. If and when Saunders does fight Golovkin, he needs to insist on bringing him over to the UK where the fight hads a chance of bringing in a big audience. Golovkin can sellout venues like the Forum in Inglewood, California and Madison Square Garden in New York, but he doesn’t have the popularity needed for him to sellout a large stadium.
Golovkin vs. Saunders would bring in a huge audience if the fight were staged in the UK, but not in the U.S. If Saunders can’t get Golovkin to agree to fight him in the UK, then there’s probably no real point in fighting him. If Saunders won’t get the $4 million or similar money to fight Golovkin, then he would be better off steering clear of that fight. Saunders has something that Golovkin wants in his WBO middleweight title. Golovkin and his promoter Tom Loeffler should pay if they want a chance to capture that belt.
“They offered me $1.5m for what? To go in someone’s back yard. Alright Lemieux done it… Look where he is now… No belt and no ranking!” said Saunders.
Saunders has a good situation going for him right now as the WBO champion. If he loses his WBO belt, he would be in a tough situation of having to go after WBA World middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs. That would be a tough fight for Saunders because Jacobs is powerful like Golovkin, and Saunders wouldn’t be able to make a lot of mistakes against him or run out of gas like he did in his fight against Andy Lee last December.
If Saunders elects to fight Golovkin for $1.5 million, he might not ever get another chance to fight for a world title again if he loses that fight. Even if Saunders does fight for another world title, there’s no telling whether he’d have the talent to win the belt.
Saunders doesn’t have the size or power to move up to super middleweight to fight the top dogs in that division. He’s also too big to move down to junior middleweight to try and win a world title in that weight class.
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