Golovkin won’t be fighting for remainder of 2016

By Boxing News - 10/18/2016 - Comments

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By Eric Baldwin: In what has to be seen as really news for boxing fans hoping to see IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) fight in December, he’s not going to be fighting for the remainder of the year. According to Dan Rafael, Triple G’s fight against WBA ‘regular’ middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs (32-1, 29 Kos) couldn’t be negotiated for the December 10 date that they were hoping to stage the fight on HBO Boxing. Team Golovkin still haven’t negotiated the fight with Jacobs’ management, and they’re running out of time before the October 22 deadline the WBA set.

Since Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler doesn’t want to let the fight go to a purse bid, they’ve decided to put the fight off until early 2017. It’s hoped that the Golovkin-Jacobs fight can get made by that point.

Loeffler has given up trying to put together the Golovkin-Jacobs fight for 2016. However, he’s still hoping to put the fight together for 2017, but even that’s not a sure thing.
The unfortunate thing for Golovkin fans is that he won’t be fighting for the remainder of 2016. He’s going to need to wait and see what happens with the Jacobs fight. They’re looking at possibly doing the fight in February or March next year, but even that’s not a sure thing. At some point they’ll need to think about going their separate ways if the fight can’t get made in early 2017.

Golovkin can’t invest years at a time in trying to negotiate a fight with Jacobs. It would be a good fight, but not that good of a fight for Golovkin to miss fights date. Whatever money that Golovkin makes from the Jacobs fight, you have to figure that it won’t be as good due to him missing a fight date in order to make it happen.
Golovkin’s promoter Loeffler said this to Rafael at espn.com about the Golovkin-Jacobs negotiation process:

“By the time contracts are signed and fighters are in training camp, it just wasn’t realistic to keep the December date, unfortunately. If we had the contracts signed today, OK, maybe we could do it. But we’re not there yet. The contract isn’t signed and there’s no telling when it would be signed. It’s not by our choice,” Loeffler said.

From what Loeffler is saying, it doesn’t appear that they’re going to be able to get the contract done by the deadline set by the WBA on October 22. There isn’t enough time, and whatever sticking points there are, it’s likely to drag the negotiations into November.

In the meantime, Golovkin can’t trainer for the fight because he wouldn’t be sure if the fight is taking place or not. It costs money to train, and you don’t train unless you have a fight that is 100 percent a done deal. The Golovkin-Jacobs fight is the farthest thing from a done deal.

There’s got to be a drop dead date in the negotiations at some point. If the negotiations still drag out for the remainder of 2016, then Loeffler will need to conclude that there’s no real serious interest from Team Jacobs to have their fighter take a risky fight with Golovkin. The fighters could then move on and go their separate ways to fight other people.

It’s unclear what the WBA will do as far as stripping one of the two champions. They’re the one that decided to order the Golovkin-Jacobs fight. Do they blame one of the fighters if the match doesn’t get made in 2017? If so, then what will the WBA do about it.

Losing the Jacobs fight for December means that Golovkin will only be fighting twice in 2016 with his stoppage victories over Dominic Wade and Kell Brook. Those were disappointing fights for many boxing fans, because the fights weren’t competitive and they left a lot to be desired in terms of action. Wade folded almost immediately in getting knocked out in two rounds last April. Brook only fought hard in the 2nd round of their fight. After landing some nice shots to the head of Golovkin in round two, Brook got on his bike and ran from Golovkin in the third, fourth and fifth rounds. The fight was stopped in round five after Brook sopped fighting back and just stood with his back against the ropes trying the best he could to make Golovkin miss until his trainer Dominic Ingle threw in the towel to have h referee stop the fight before Brook could get seriously hurt.

“As soon as we can get the deal agreed to we’ll figure out a date and location,” Loeffler said. “But first we have to make the fight. Optimally, it will stay at Madison Square Garden. Our goal is to not go to a purse bid because a promotion is more effective when both sides are happy with the deal.”

It’s obvious that Loeffler doesn’t want the Golovkin-Jacobs fight to go to a purse bid, because if they lose the bid, they would be forced to make a decision about whether to let Golovkin fight on Showtime or to vacate the title. Golovkin is under contract with HBO, so it’s not likely that he would be permitted to fight on Showtime by the network.

Jacobs and his management would come out ahead if Golovkin is forced to vacate his WBA title, because they could take the belt. If Golovkin wanted it back in the future, then he wouldn’t be in as strong a position during negotiations, because it would be a unification match at that point.