By Dan Ambrose: With the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight now officially off the table until 2017, per Golden Boy Promotions, IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) and his promoter Tom Loeffler will now focus their energy on making an important fight against British fighter Chris Eubank Jr. for September in the UK.
Golovkin, 34, is willing to travel to the UK to fight Eubank Jr. in his home country if the match is a big enough one for him to do that. Eubank Jr’s promoter Eddie Hearn believes that the Golovkin fight is big enough to stick it in a stadium.
That would obviously make it worthwhile for Golovkin, because he hasn’t had the opportunity as of yet to fight in front of a huge stadium level crowd. This would be a big deal for Triple G, and it would help increase his star power. Eubank Jr. and his father Chris Eubank Sr. have done a lot of talking recently about the Golovkin fight, and they both seem to be extremely confident they can beat him.
This will make for a more interesting fight than Golovkin’s usual ones. Most of Golovkin’s opponents say little and seem scared of him before getting into the ring. Eubank Jr. will be a completely different type of foe in the lead up to the fight if it happens. Whether Eubank Jr. will fare any better than Golovkin’s past opponent’s remains to be seen.
“I’ve been talking to Eddie about Eubank Jr., and Eddie said as soon as [Saturday’s] fight is over, we will see if we can move forward with that fight,” Loeffler said to ESPN.com.
Eubank Jr. needs to do his job this Saturday night against unbeaten Tom Doran (17-0, 7 KOs) at the O2 Arena in London, England. The negotiations between Eubank Jr. and Golovkin shouldn’t take that long, as this isn’t a situation where Eubank Jr. would be asking for a catch-weight handicap of 155lbs. He also isn’t in the position to ask for the bigger slice of the financial pie from Golovkin. However, with the Golovkin-Eubank Jr. fight likely winding up on Sky Box Office pay-per-view, Eubank Jr. would be getting a healthy split of the revenue, because there would be no fight without him.
Golovkin probably wouldn’t make as good money if he were to fight someone like Billy Joe Saunders, Andy Lee or Liam Smith. Eubank Jr. seems to be able to generate a great deal of interest with his sound bites, and his unshakeable self-confidence. I don’t think Golovkin have ever fought anyone with the kind of confidence that Eubank Jr. has in himself since turning pro 12 years ago. Sometimes people with out of control confidence are their own worst enemies, when they don’t realize their own limitations until it’s too late.
Eubank Jr. might fall into that category. If so, then he will need to make some changes to his attitude if he loses to Golovkin, because it might make him look bad if he assumes he’s going to win every time he steps up, but then winds up losing. Eubank Jr. has one good opponent during his career in Billy Joe Saunders in 2014 and was beaten by him. Eubank Jr. still believes he won the fight. He only has himself to blame for the loss by failing to let his hands go in the first six rounds of the fight.
“I believe that Canelo wants to fight Gennady. I don’t think he is afraid of Gennady, but I think Golden Boy wants to build up the fight, and the time also gives Canelo time to get to 160 pounds,” Loeffler said. “We can jump up and down all we want, but it won’t help us get the deal. We have to focus on continuing to build Gennady. The bigger we can make Gennady, the bigger we can make that fight with Canelo, as long as we have to wait.”
We don’t know right now if Canelo and Golden Boy Promotions are going to be looking to pull a Floyd Mayweather Jr. type move by letting the fight with Golovkin marinate for many years the way Mayweather did in his fight against Manny Pacquiao. That move worked out well for Mayweather and Pacquiao, because they made more money by waiting to take the fight in 2015, than they would have made if they had fought each other in 2009. However, it was extremely frustrating for the boxing public to have to wait six years before the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight did take place.
It was disappointing that by the time that Mayweather did fight Pacquiao, the Filipino star was no longer the same fighter he had been six years earlier. Pacquiao had aged, slowed, and was dealing with a shoulder injury. Golovkin is 34 now, and if Golden Boy and Canelo wait him out for five or six years, he’ll be around 40 and likely not nearly the same fighter he is today.
If Golden Boy waits too long before making the Canelo-Golovkin fight, they could spoil the fight due to one of them getting beaten. We saw Pacquiao lose twice in defeats to Juan Manuel Marquez and Tim Bradley during the six year time period that Mayweather waited to make that fight. Surprisingly, the boxing public forgot about those defeats and still were willing to buy the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight on PPV.