Jacobs wants interim fight before Golovkin match

By Boxing News - 10/07/2016 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: WBA ‘regular’ middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) is said to be looking to get an interim fight BEFORE he faces WBA Super Champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs), according to ESPN.com. Not surprisingly, Golovkin is against Jacobs taking an interim fight. He wants the Jacobs fight next, not in some distant point in the far away future.

Golovkin already went down the interim fight track by letting former WBC middleweight champion Saul Canelo Alvarez take an interim fight against Amir Khan last May while Golovkin fought Dominic Wade. Canelo then vacated his WBC title rather than fight Golovkin. In other words, Golovkin wasted his time letting Canelo take an interim fight rather than insisting on the fight against the Mexican fighter right away.

You can argue that Canelo’s fight against Khan, which was televised on HBO pay-per-view, might have brought in more buys due to boxing fans thinking that Canelo would fight Golovkin next. He didn’t. Instead, Canelo vacated the belt. now we’re seeing Jacobs reportedly asking for an interim fight before fighting Golovkin, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.

Even if Golovkin did agree to Jacobs’ request for an interim fight, what would change? They would still be right back where they’re started from when it comes to negotiating the Golovkin-Jacobs fight. Jacobs likely believes that with the months of publicity of a fight between him and Golovkin, it would make a fight between them much bigger than it is right now.

I don’t think that would be the case, especially if Jacobs fights another weak opponent like Sergio Mora. It doesn’t matter how much time is given between the Golovkin vs. Jacobs fight, if Jacobs is going to be fighting weak opposition, the boxing public is not going to get more interested in seeing him fight Golovkin than they are right now. If anything, the fans may lose interest if they see Jacobs fight another Sergio Mora type of opponent instead of someone good.

World Boxing Association president Gilberto Mendoza ordered Golovkin and Jacobs to begin negotiations on September 11, giving them 30 days to get the fight put together. The 30 day period is up on October 12. Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler has asked for a short extension to try and work out the fight with Jacobs before the WBA orders a purse bid on October 12 if the fight isn’t negotiated.

Golovkin and Jacobs are supposed to be fighting each other on December 10 on HBO Championship Boxing. That could change if the fight goes to a purse bid and Showtime or Jacobs’ manager Al Haymon win the bid. With Golovkin under contract with HBO, he wouldn’t likely take the fight unless Jacobs were willing to fight him on HBO. The chances are Haymon would try and stick the fight on Showtime, and this would put Golovkin in an untenable position where he would pretty much have to vacate his WBA title. It would be a lose-lose situation for Showtime, Haymon and Jacobs. They wouldn’t get the Golovkin fight. Instead, they might end up having Jacobs fight someone else entirely, which would likely be less interesting, especially if it’s little known #1 WBA Alfonso Blanco. That would be ratings disaster.

Jacobs wants the fight at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Golovkin wants it at Madison Square Garden in New York. If it goes to a purse bid, then Golovkin would need to agree to wherever the winner of the bid wants it to be staged.

Jacobs’ attorney Leon Margules has asked the WBA to change the percentage split for the Golovkin fight from 75-25 in Golovkin’s favor to 60-40. The WBA will be voting on this. However, if they give Jacobs too big of a split, it won’t be worth it for Golovkin to fight him. If Golovkin can make more money fighting someone else in which he gets the bigger split of the revenue, then he’s not helping himself by having Jacobs making almost as much money as him. The WBA will be deciding what the new split is unless Loeffler and Jacobs’ management can work out a deal. But if the split is too even, then Golovkin will need to decide whether it’s orth it for him to fight Jacobs.

If Golovkin gives a fighter like Jacobs a great deal, then it’s quite likely that Golovkin’s other opponents will drag their feet until they too are given a 60-40 deal or better. At some point, Loeffler needs to walk away rather than giving in to opponents like Jacobs. If Jacobs could bring more to the table in terms of popularity in the boxing world, then it would be worth it to give him a 60-40 split of the revenue.

Unfortunately, Jacobs doesn’t have a large built in fans base like Canelo Alvarez does in the United States. Jacobs has some fans, but not a huge amount to where he rates a 60-40 deal. The WBA may be shooting themselves in the foot if they give Jacobs his way in giving him a 60-40 deal. Golovkin could then vacate his WBA title, and walk away. The WBA would then be stuck with Alfonso Blanco fighting Jacobs. What a bore. Jacobs would be the equivalent of a paper champion as the new WBA “super Champion.” There would be nothing super about him.

“It has changed in some cases, but usually they are not changed,” Mendoza said to espn.com about the WBA changing the percentage split in the past for fights involving ‘super champions’ and ‘regular’ champions with their organization.

Increasing the percentage of the purse split for the Golovkin-Jacobs fight would put the two fighters too close to each other in the sharing of the revenue. Is Jacobs almost as popular as Golovkin? I don’t think he is. That’s why it would setup a situation where Golovkin wouldn’t be helping himself by taking the fight with Jacobs.

“Still trying to work out the situation,” Loeffler said to espn.com “The WBA hasn’t ruled yet on the purse-split modification [request] from the Jacobs side.”

Any deal that Loeffler reaches with Jacobs’ management will likely see Jacobs getting an increase in his percentage split from 75/25 to something higher. Just how much more is the big question? Jacobs’ management could simply wait for the WBA to decide whether they’ll increase the split or not. If they choose not to, then Jacobs could vacate his WBA title and move on. We saw Peter Quillin vacate his WBO middleweight title a couple of years ago when his manager Haymon failed to win the purse bid. Quillin still hasn’t won a title since then.