WBA keeps Golovkin-Jacobs split at 75/25

By Boxing News - 10/12/2016 - Comments

1-o2arena-golovkin-brook-59

By Allan Fox: The World Boxing Association committee has ruled in favor of WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin to keep the 75/25 purse split in his favor for his fight against WBA ‘regular’ champion Daniel Jacobs. This is obviously disappointing news for the management of Team Jacobs, as they were looking for an increase of 60/40 for the split to make the fight more worthwhile to them.

It’s now unclear whether Jacobs will pull out of the fight with Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) or if the two sides can work a deal to give him a little better percentage of the split to keep him and his team happy.

You would think that something along the lines of 70-30 would be fair to Jacobs or perhaps even 65/35. Even that split would have to be considered very generous on the part of Golovkin and his management, because the 29-year-old Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) doesn’t have the same kind of popularity as Golovkin has going for him.

If Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler can’t work a deal with Jacobs’ management, then the fight will go to a purse bid. However, with the split now set at 75/25, it’s not in Jacobs’ best interest for the fight to go to a purse bid. They can take whatever offer that Loeffler gives them, be it 70-30, or they can pull out of the fight. Of course, Jacobs can also let the fight to a purse bid.

If his management win the bid, then it would put Golovkin in a situation where he might need to fight on Premier Boxing Champions on Showtime. Golovkin is under contract with HBO, so he might not be able to do that. If Golovkin vacate his title, then Jacobs would be able to fight for his WBA ‘Super title’ against #1 Alfonso Blanco. The WBA would be left with a less popular fighter holding their main belt, while Golovkin would go in another direction. It’s not a good deal for the WBA.

Loeffler said this to ESPN.com:

“Now that the ruling has come down I will continue to try to make the fight. It’s a great fight and one I think both fighters want and a fight the fans are interested in. Everyone was waiting on the decision from the WBA and it should give us guidance on how to negotiate the fight from here…Our preference, naturally, would be to reach an agreement, It’s more effective to run a promotion that way where both sides are happy.”

It’ll be disappointing if the Golovkin vs. Jacobs fight doesn’t wind up taking place, but that’s a possibility. Unless Loeffler can come to some kind of agreement with Jacobs’ management to bump up the purse split, it’s possible the fight might not get made. Jacobs’ management might see the fight as one that will make a ton of money one of these days in the future. For them to agree to the fight right now with a percentage split of 75/25, they would be selling themselves short.

If the fight becomes pay-per-view worthy in 2017 or 2018, then they would be shooting themselves in the foot by taking the fight now for just 25% of the revenue for a fight on regular HBO Championship Boxing. If Golovkin defeats Saul Canelo Alvarez in 2017, he’s going to suddenly be a very, very popular fighter. It would be better for Jacobs to fight Golovkin at that point in a fight that would likely be on pay-per-view, then to take the smaller money now for a regular HBO fight, and possibly lose.

Once Jacobs gets beaten by Golovkin by a knockout, it could be a major setback to his career similar to the one he suffered in getting stopped by Dmitry Pirog in 2010. Jacobs wouldn’t get the kind of credit that welterweight Kell Brook got just for being competitive with Golovkin, because he’s a middleweight. Your career doesn’t take off in getting stopped in the 5th round by Golovkin if you fight in the same division as him. That only works when you move up from welterweight like Brook was in his fight against Golovkin last September.

The Golovkin-Jacobs fight is supposed to take place on December 10 on HBO if the two sides can agree to the negotiations.

According to ESPN, the WBA chose to keep the split at 75/25 for the following reasons:

– Golovkin has held the WBA middleweight title since 2010 in defending it 16 times. That’s a considerable amount of time for a champion to hold down a title in this day and age.

– In the past eight years, Golovkin has knocked out 23 consecutive opponents since 2008.

– Jacobs has held his WBA ‘regular’ title for just two years since winning the belt in 2014 with a stoppage win over Jarrod Fletcher. Jacobs has since defended his WBA title four times successfully.

You can argue that the WBA might have driven Golovkin off if they’d increased Jacobs’ purse split to 40 percent of the revenue. With that kind of split, it wouldn’t have been in Golovkin’s best interest to hold onto his title, because he could go fight someone else for a much bigger split and likely wind up making more money than he’d make for a dangerous fight against Jacobs.

It’s not a good deal for Golovkin to take a potentially difficult fight against Jacobs and not wind up making more money than he’d get for fighting a lesser fighter like Kell Brook. That’s what Golovkin is looking at anyway. He made good money for his fight against Brook, and he’ll now be taking a pay cut to fight Jacobs, who is a lot more difficult to beat due to his size, power and speed.

Jacobs will likely be offered a better deal than the 75/25 the WBA has given Golovkin the right to make. The only thing that could cause the fight not to get made is if Jacobs’ team feels that 40% of the revenue is the only way the fight is worth it for them to take. If that’s the case, then we’ll likely see them drop out of the fight and go in another direction. Jacobs would joint Premier Boxing Champions fighter Peter Quillin in the contender ranks.

Quillin gave up his WBO middleweight title two years ago in 2014 after his manager Al Haymon lost a purse bid for a fight against Matt Karobov. Quillin has been unable to capture a title since then. It would sad if Quillin never wins another world title in his career.

If the Golovkin-Jacobs fight does go to a purse bid on October 22, then it’ll be interesting to see what Golovkin does if his management loses the bid. Do they have Golovkin vacate his WBA 160lb title or do they go ahead and let him fight on Showtime rather than HBO? It’s questionable whether HBO will let Golovkin do that. You hate to see Golovkin give up a title without a fight, but he might need to do that in this case. That’s why there’s a certain amount of pressure to make sure the fight gets made with Jacobs unless Golovkin’s management feels confident they can win the purse bid.

Hopefully Jacobs’ management takes the news from the WBA in a mature manner. It would be bad if they sulk about it, and have Jacobs pull out of the fight negotiations. He would be stripped of his WBA title. This is Jacobs’ best shot at improving his boxing career in a real hurry if he can beat Golovkin. He’s getting older now and he doesn’t have much to show for his career other than his win over Pete Quillin, who is clearly on the downside of his own career.