By Dan Ambrose: Tom Loeffler, the promoter for IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs), says he wants the negotiations with the promoters of WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (47-0-1, 33 KOs) to go as fast as possible so that they can get the fight signed between the two middleweight champions.
Loeffler isn’t going to have the negotiation details leaked to the boxing public. Something like that might be detrimental to the fight getting put together, especially if information is leaked about Canelo and his team insisting on a catch-weight handicap for the fight. It’s considered a given that Canelo and Golden Boy will look for a weight handicap for this fight, even though Canelo hardly needs one.
The weight handicap would be a tool to help weaken Golovkin rather than it being something that is really needed for Canelo. You can say that weight handicap is something that Canelo might need because without it, he has very little chance of beating Golovkin.
“We are in discussions, but we have both agreed that we will not negotiate this fight in the media,” Loeffler said to ESPN.com. “From our side, we just want to get it finalized as quickly as possible.”
The World Boxing Association is going to let the Golovkin vs. Canelo fight take place without them getting in the way of the contest. However, if the fight fails to take place, the WBA is prepared to order a fight between Golovkin and his WBA mandatory challenger Daniel Jacobs. That’s a fight that might not ever take place though, because it’s highly unlikely that Jacobs’ adviser Al Haymon would sign on for him to fight a knockout artist like Golovkin.
When the WBA finally gets around to ordering the Golovkin-Jacobs fight, it wouldn’t be surprising at all if Jacobs vacates the WBA title immediately rather than taking the fight. Jacobs would then likely be positioned to fight for the WBO title held by Billy Joe Saunders. Golovkin could soon be facing WBO champion Billy Joe Saunders himself. If Golovkin gets to Saunders before Jacobs does, then that would put Jacobs in a tough situation where he need to either fight Golovkin or content with just being a contender.
Jacobs could also move up to super middleweight to try his hand in that weight class. It might be tough on him in that weight class, however. Golovkin is the WBA “Super” 160lb champion and Jacobs (31-1, 28 KOs) is the WBA World 160lb champ.
“The WBA will not interfere in the Golovkin-Canelo negotiations because that is the fight the fans want,” said WBA president Gilberto Mendoza said. “However, should they not reach an agreement, [the] WBA mandatory fight for Golovkin will be against [Daniel] Jacobs.”
The Canelo vs. Golovkin teams have 15 days to get negotiated before it goes to a purse bid on May 24 if the two sides can’t reach an agreement. It seems very likely we’ll see a purse bid for this fight. Something will likely keep the two camps from agreeing to the negotiations. It’s probable that a catch-weight request from Team Canelo will be the root of the disagreement followed closely by a lopsided purse that is tilted heavily in Canelo’s favor.
Canelo-Golovkin will almost surely be taking place on the Mexican Independence Day holiday weekend on September 17 in order to take advantage of the holiday and the many Mexican boxing fans that will be celebrating. It’s a fight that will generate a great deal of pay-per-view buys on HBO, and it could wind up as the biggest fight of 2016. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya predicted recently that Canelo’s fight last Saturday night against Amir Khan will bring in two million PPV buys. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen. However, Golovkin-Canelo will likely bring in far bigger numbers than that fight because this is considered to be the much bigger fight of the two.
It could be the biggest fight of Canelo’s career; even bigger than his 2013 fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. What makes the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight a bigger fight than Canelo vs. Mayweather is because there’s a real danger that Canelo will not only lose to Golovkin, but he’ll also be knocked out in the process. Canelo was the underdog in the Mayweather fight, but he only had to worry about losing by a decision to the light hitting smaller fighter.
Against Golovkin, Canelo would be facing a tremendous puncher with equal size to him. The danger in this fight for Canelo is him not only losing but also being embarrassed by getting knocked out. As a result, a lot of Canelo’s fans will pay to see if he can avoid getting knocked out and if he can pull off a major upset. They don’t want to see Canelo get beaten, but they’ll want to see if he can upset the odds by beating the better fighter Golovkin.