By Dan Ambrose: The promoters for IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and WBC belt holder Saul “Canelo” Alvarez have been in negotiations for a little over a week now to put together a mega-fight between the two fighters for September 17. There’s a scheduled purse bid next week on May 24 in case the two fighters’ teams are unable to reach a deal by then.
The way it’s looking, it could very well go to a purse bid. There’s total silence from both teams, which ESPN interprets as a good thing, but the deadline for the negotiations to be completed is fast approaching and it’s very possible this will go to a purse bid.
What could be holding up the negotiations for the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight is anyone’s guess. It could be that Canelo and Golden Boy Promotions are insisting on a catch-weight handicap of 155lbs, even though the 170+lb Canelo hardly needs a catch-weight against a guy he’s the same exact size as.
The only thing catch-weight would help Canelo with is draining an older fighter to weaken him. It’s sometimes not easy for older fighters in their mid-30s to drain down in weight. Canelo is only 25, and he’s already shown himself to be proficient and taking off huge amounts of water weight to make the 155lb catch-weight limits for his fights, and then ballooning up in weight after rehydrating overnight. The other potential sticking point in the negotiations likely is the money split.
Canelo is the A-side in the negotiations, and he might be electing to ask for a lopsided split of the money in his favor. It makes sense for Canelo to do that, but if it’s so lopsided that the money is too low for the fight to even be worth it for Golovkin, then obviously the fight won’t happen under those conditions.
Offering a tiny amount of money to Golovkin for the fight is one way for Canelo and Golden Boy to get out of the fight without looking bad in the eyes of the boxing fans. Canelo and his promoters can always say, ‘Well, we tried to make the fight with Golovkin, but he was unreasonable because he wanted too much money.’ Canelo could then move forward to fight Golden Boy fighters David Lemieux and Curtis Stevens while Golovkin ages some more until he’s no longer a physical threat.
I suspect that’s what ultimately is going to happen. I do not see the Golovkin vs. Canelo fight taking place in 2016, 2017 or 2018. As long as Golovkin is looking invincible, I believe there won’t be a fight. Right now, Golovkin is looking out of this world good, and that might cause Canelo and Golden Boy to steer towards safer waters.
Canelo has said in the past that he’s not afraid of fighting anyone. This is his chance to show that by taking on the Golovkin fight. If Canelo chooses to avoid the fight because Golovkin won’t drain down to 155, then you can assume that Canelo got cold feet and didn’t want to risk getting beaten by the Kazakhstan fighter. The loser of the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight will very likely see a huge amount of their fans jumping ship to the winner of the fight.
Let's do this #GiveMeMyBelt pic.twitter.com/wlJegdsIZC
— Gennady Golovkin (@GGGBoxing) May 17, 2016
Golovkin has less to lose than Canelo because he’s not a PPV fighter yet. If Canelo gets beaten, he might have a hard time asking the boxing public to pay to see him beat up on welterweights like Amir Khan or slow fighters coming off of long layoffs like Alfredo Angulo and James Kirkland. It might be a hard road back for the Mexican star. I’m not sure he can get back to where he was previously by beating up on welterweights. He might actually need to fight some good middleweights to get back up to where he is now.