By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions are still planning on matching their flagship fighter Saul Canelo Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs) against unbeaten middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) for September 2017, but it will depend on a number of things.
Canelo has two fights that Golden Boy wants to put him in before the Golovkin fight next year in February and May on HBO. It’s ambitious that Golden Boy wants Canelo to fight three times in 2017, because it requires that his recently fractured right hand allows him to fight.
It also would be necessary for Canelo to win his fight in February without getting nicked up so that he could return to the ring three months later to fight on the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo in May 2017. Golden Boy Promotions can increase the chances of Canelo getting through his February fight without injury if they pick a soft opponent for him to fight rather than a quality guy.
The drawback of Canelo fighting yet another weak opponent will likely be low ratings. Canelo hasn’t been fighting dangerous opponents lately with him beating Liam Smith and Amir Khan in his last two fights. Those were soft opponents, and yet Golden Boy still had Canelo fight them both on HBO pay-per-view. Golden Boy wants to turn Canelo into a star in the U.S., but they’re not matching him against the kind of guys to turn him into the type of PPV attraction that we saw with Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Manny Pacquiao in his prime.
The February fight for Canelo will be a non-pay-per-view fight on HBO. The fight in May for Canelo will definitely be on HBO pay-per-view. With Canelo coming off of a fractured right hand in his last fight on September 17 against WBO junior middleweight champion Liam “Beefy” Smith, the hand will need to be completely healed before a match between Canelo and Golovkin can take place next year.
Golden Boy will now let Canelo fight a talent like Golovkin with a bad hand. There’s also the question of whether the Canelo-Golovkin fight can get made. Golden Boy has already an eight-figure offer to Golovkin for the fight with Canelo, and they appear to be firm on that offer. It’s reportedly an offer in the neighborhood of $10 million guaranteed plus a percentage of the pay-per-view. Whether Golden Boy will increase the offer or not is unknown.
If they don’t, then they could put Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler in the position where he’ll need to take the offer or leave it. Golovkin isn’t going to make the kind of money he’d receive for the Canelo fight. But then again, Canelo doesn’t have anyone in the sport right now that can give him the same kind of money he’d receive for a fight against Golovkin. If Floyd Mayweather Jr. chooses to come back, then that would be a possibility, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. Canelo’s best option for a big money fight is against Golovkin. A rematch between Canelo and Miguel Cotto might not do as well as it did last year in November 2015 due to Cotto’s decision to stay inactive since then.
Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez said this to ESPN.com about Canelo’s next fight in February:
“We’re looking at mid-February for him to fight, which would give him enough time to also fight again in May,” Gomez said, adding that the possible February fight would be an HBO bout, not an HBO PPV event. “Hopefully, everything goes well and then we get the Golovkin fight done for September. The plan is still to fight Golovkin.”
It would be nice if Golden Boy Promotions took some risks with Canelo for a change by matching him against a good fighter or at least someone with some punching power for his fight in February. It would show some real courage on Golden Boy’s part if they matched Canelo against David Lemieux in February or Avtandil Khurtsidze.
Unfortunately, Canelo’s next fight in February will likely be a catchweight fight at 155 or 157. Lemieux barely makes 160. If he had to melt down to 155 to fight Canelo, he likely would be too weak to fight. That could give Canelo a big advantage over Lemieux. That might not be a bad idea for Golden Boy if they want to make sure that Canelo wins his next fight with 100 percent certainty, and without suffering an injury.
If Golovkin and his promoter Tom Loeffler want the Canelo fight, they may need to jump through hoops to get it. The eight-figure offer that was given to them by Golden Boy CEO Oscar De La Hoya would be the first hoop they’ll need to jump through. Golovkin would also likely need to agree to fight Canelo in Texas in front of a large pro-Canelo crowd as well. Golovkin might have problems fighting in front of so many of Canelo’s boxing fans.
The crowd might have an effect on the scoring of the fight as well. As we saw in Golovkin’s recent match against British welterweight Kell Brook, the judges were giving Brook a lot of the rounds in a fight that he appeared to be losing. The match took place in London, England last September. While many boxing fans had the fight scored 3 rounds to 1 after the 4th round in favor of Golovkin, the judges saw a completely different fight. One of them had Brook winning 3 rounds to 1, and the other two had it 2 rounds a piece. Golovkin also seemed uncomfortable with the crowd cheering so much for Brook. Golovkin still fought hard and ended up getting the stoppage win in the end, but he wasn’t as patient as he’d been in the past. He was too much in a hurry, not using his jab and not throwing body shots until the end.
Golovkin might need a knockout over Canelo to get a win if the fight takes place in Texas. Austin Trout fought well enough to deserve a draw against Canelo in their fight in San Antonio, Texas in 2013. Instead, Trout lost by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores 116-112, 118-109 and 116-111. I scored that fight for Trout.
Canelo won a 12 round split decision win over Erislandy Lara in 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada. That was another fight that many boxing fans saw Canelo losing. Golovkin can make sure that the judges have no say so in a fight against Canelo by knocking him out. But for Golovkin to get a chance to do that, his management are likely going to need to agree to stage the Canelo-Golovkin fight wherever Golden Boy Promotions wants them to, which probably means in front of a large pro-Canelo crowd in Texas.
With Canelo’s next fight in February not being on HBO pay-per-view, it suggests that they’re going to match him against an opponent that isn’t a threat to beating him. Canelo is supposed to fight at middleweight at a catch-weight for his February fight. Since the fight won’t be on PPV, it means Canelo could be fighting someone like Gabriel Rosado, Curtis Stevens or Willie Monroe Jr. Those are fighters that wouldn’t likely bring in a lot of pay-per-view buys if Canelo fought any of them in May.
The options for Canelo’s fight in May come down to WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders and David Lemieux. Saunders has a very good chance of being an opponent for Canelo in either of his first two fights in early 2017. It’s important that Canelo captures the WBO middleweight title before he fights Golovkin in September 2017, because it would make that fight a unification match rather than Canelo coming into as just a challenger.
As a champion, Canelo would be in a better position to get the lion’s share of the revenue against Golovkin than if he were just another challenger. It would be bad news for Canelo and Golden Boy if he were to lose to Saunders. I doubt that’s possible. The fight will be held in the U.S., and likely in a place where Canelo would have a huge pro-Canelo crowd like in Texas. It would be difficult for Saunders to win a decision fighting Canelo in Texas, even if he out-boxed him. Canelo is almost to beat by a decision, as Erislandy Lara and Austin Trout both found out. Even Floyd Mayweather Jr. couldn’t get a unification decision over him despite him boxing circles around him for 12 rounds in their fight in 2013.
Canelo, 26, was supposed to be fighting on December 10 on HBO pay-per-view, but that couldn’t have due to his hand injury he suffered against Liam Smith earlier this year on September 17. It’s too bad, because Canelo could have taken one of the guys he’ll be facing in early 2017. Canelo’s December 10 date has now been taken by Top Rank fighter Terence Crawford, who will be facing light welterweight contender John Molina Jr. on HBO Championship Boxing. It’s not a great fight. Golovkin was supposed to fight on December 10 against WBA ‘regular’ middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs, but the two fighters’ management was unable to negotiate the fight in time.