By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions has apparently sweetened their original flat fee offer of $10 million to $15 million for IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) to fight their top money maker in their stable Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs) in September 2017 in a mega-fight on HBO PPV. While the lump sum offer is increasing for Golovkin from Golden Boy, it still amounts to be just a flat fee and not the percentage deal that GGG and his promoter Tom Loeffler are looking for before they’ll give them their John Hancock signature on a contract.
They want a percentage of 40% before they’ll agree to the fight against the 26-year-old Canelo. That’s not unreasonable for Team Golovkin to be asking for 40 percent of the cut of the green loot for the fight.
Without Golovkin, Canelo is back to bringing in 300,000 buys on HBO fighting ‘safe opponents’ that have no chance of beating him like Amir Khan, James Kirkland and Liam Smith. We’re already seeing Canelo’s PPV numbers dropping off the side of a cliff in his last two fights. Whose to know if the drop-off we’re seeing is short term one or a long term one.
There is no way of knowing if the boxing public is getting wise to the soft match-making that is being done by Golden Boy for their golden goose Canelo, and losing interest in paying to see his terrible mismatches. We saw how Manny Pacquiao’s and Floyd Mayweather Jr’s own PPV numbers dropped off after the boxing public paid a small fortune to see them fight last year in the dud of the century. The fans responded to that dud by buying Mayweather and Pacquiao’s fights in lower PPV numbers afterwards, much lower PPV numbers.
“[Golden Boy Promotions president Eric] Gomez said Golden Boy and Golovkin promoter Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions have been talking about a deal, but that the biggest obstacle is Golden Boy’s insistence on paying Golovkin’s side a flat fee – at least $15 million – while Golovkin’s side wants to have a stake, as much as 40 percent, in the event,” said Dan Rafael of ESPN.com.
It doesn’t look good for the Canelo-Golovkin taking place in 2017. I hate to say it, but I don’t think the fight is going to take place next year. If Golden Boy is going to dig their feet into the sand and refuse to budge on not giving GGG the 40 percent cut of the revenue for his fight against Canelo, then I think fight won’t take place next year.
The two fighters can restart the negotiations in 2018, perhaps with a fresher outlook on what is reasonable what is not. I don’t know if it’s Canelo personally giving the marching orders to his promoters at Golden Boy about Golovkin not getting the 40 percent of the revenue that he wants or if it’s coming from Golden Boy. I think we’re going to see is Canelo fighting Miguel Cotto next September rather than Triple G. Just remember, you heard it here first at Boxing News 24 from Dan Ambrose. Canelo WILL NOT fight GGG in September 2017. Instead, Canelo will fight Miguel Cotto in his farewell fight on HBO PPV. Earlier in the year in 2017, Canelo will likely face David Lemieux or Curtis Stevens in February followed by Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in May on Cinco de Mayo holiday. Canelo’s third and final fight of 2017 will be against Cotto. It’s so obvious that it’s not even funny.
I suspect that Golden Boy won’t start feeling the pressure of giving Golovkin a percentage split rather than a lump flat fee until Canelo has exhausted all of the opponents that golden Boy wants him to fight. This means that Canelo has beaten the likes of Chavez Jr., Billy Joe Saunders, Cotto, David Lemieux and Curtis Stevens.
I think Golovkin should stick it out for the 40 percent cut of the green for the Canelo fight. Until they give the approval for the percentage split, I wouldn’t agree to the deal. Golovkin might not be quite as popular as Canelo, but without him, he’s not going to be bringing in a ton of PPV buys on HBO. With Golovkin, Canelo can bring in possibly 2 million+ buys on PPV. Without Golovkin, Canelo is back to doing his 300,000 buys or maybe even lower, as the boxing public catches on and realizes that Canelo is being fed weak opposition on PPV.