By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya took to Twitter on Wednesday, telling Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. to sign the contract for the May 6 fight against Golden Boy fighter Saul Canelo Alvarez. De La Hoya was a little more specific than that. He told the 30-year-old Chavez Jr. to stop with the social media posting, and sign for the fight.
Chavez Jr. is reportedly not happy with the money he’s being offered by Golden Boy for the fight against their top money maker Canelo. According to Fight News, Canelo will be getting five times the Chavez Jr. will be receiving for the fight. The offer Chavez Jr. has received is $7 million.
Golden Boy recently gave Chavez Jr. a one-week deadline on December 24 for him to accept the offer given to him for the Canelo fight. It would appear that deadline has passed without Chavez Jr. agreeing to accept the offer. He reportedly wants a percentage deal for the Canelo fight rather than a lump sum flat fee.
Here’s what De La Hoya said to Chavez Jr. on social media:
“Junior, we gave you the opportunity to fight Canelo. Your manager has the contract. Stop tweeting lies, go sign and we’ll be on for May 6,” De La Hoya said.
Chavez Jr. fired back his own Tweet in response to De La Hoya’s comment, saying this:
“You need to respect more the fighters I never liked to hear your reality all need each other champ,” Chavez Jr. said.
In looking at that comment, De La Hoya is talking from a position of power in telling Chavez Jr., “We gave you the opportunity to fight Canelo.” That sounds almost like De La Hoya is giving to the needy. When you talk like that, you can argue that it suggests that you’re throwing a bone to somebody in need of help rather than you dealing with someone on equal terms. “We gave you the opportunity.” I can see why that would upset Chavez Jr. If De La Hoya is using the same tone during the negotiations with Chavez Jr. and his management, then it’s no wonder the fight hasn’t been made.
Chavez Jr. is someone that was not long ago at the same position Canelo was it. It was only four years ago that Chavez Jr. was a highly popular fighter. A 12 round unanimous decision loss to Sergio Martinez in 2012 followed by a 9 month suspension for testing positive for cannabis, they seemed to have taken the wind out of the sales for Chavez Jr’s career. He went from being at the top of the sport to rarely fighting. When Chavez Jr. did fight against Brian Vera, Andrzej Fonara and Marco Reyes, he did not look well trained.
Chavez Jr. said this via Fight News about the negotiations with Golden Boy:
“We agreed to less money, but not these excessive childish whims,” said Chavez Jr. about Canelo. “We’re going to do things professionally and correctly, otherwise there’s no sense to give importance or grow the egos of people.”
If De La Hoya pulls the rug out from under Chavez Jr. by cancelling the negotiations for the Canelo fight, it’s not going to be good for either of them. The options for Canelo are not great. Canelo can fight WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders, David Lemieux, Curtis Stevens, Gabriel Rosado or Kanat Islam. The fight would take place on May 6 on Cinco de Mayo holiday weekend. None of those guys bring much to the table. Saunders would give Canelo a chance to win the WBO belt that he can later use as a bargaining chip for a unification fight against middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. However, the U.S boxing fans aren’t familiar with Saunders, and the money to be made from that fight would very likely be similar to the 300,000 buys Canelo’s last fight pulled in on HBO PPV against former WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith on September 17.
This would be another safe fight for Canelo, but it would be stunting his career, which appears to be happening due to the soft match-making being done by Golden Boy. Instead of Canelo bringing in over 1 million buys each time he fights, he’s bringing in 300,000 buys. That could change if Golden Boy takes chances with him by matching him tougher, but they seem unwilling to do that.
Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. will be a catchweight fight at 165 pounds. The weight has been agreed on by Chavez Jr., who would need to come down from 168 for him to make the catchweight limit. That won’t be easy for him, because he’s been having problems making the 168lb limit in his last three fights. Only once has Chavez Jr. been able to make weight at 168.
It would bad news for the boxing community if Canelo can’t face Chavez Jr. on May 6, because it’s at least a decent fight compared to the other options available to Canelo. Ideally, it would be great if Golden Boy stepped up the level of Canelo’s opposition by matching him against the likes of Jermall Charlo for his next fight, but that’s not going to happen.
Charlo is dangerous, and Golden Boy is matching him against slower, less powerful fighters than him. Even Lemieux would be an upgrade for Canelo over his last two opponents. That’s another fight that is unlikely to happen. Saunders can’t punch, so he’s very likely going to be Golden Boy’s Plan-B for Canelo if they don’t make the fight against Chavez Jr.
Kanat Islam is a name that is rumored to be a possibility for Canelo as well. However, if Canelo fights Kana, then it will make a fight against Golovkin later in the year unlikely, because Golden Boy will want to make sure that Canelo fights at least one true middleweight before he faces Golovkin. Kanat is a junior middleweight, and not a particularly big one at 5’8”.
Golden Boy can make the Chavez Jr. fight with Canelo if they sweeten the deal to give have a bigger slice of the financial pie. It makes sense for them to do that, because with the help of Chavez Jr., the fight will likely bring in big PPV numbers. Without Chavez Jr, Canelo is likely looking at around 300,000 buys for a fight against Saunders on May 6.