By Jeff Aranow: Golden Boy Promotions President Eric Gomez says that his company is still planning on matching their star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs) against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs0 in a big pay-per-view fight on HBO in September of this year.
That’s the idea that Golden Boy still wants to carry out. However, before the Canelo-Golovkin fight can take place, both fighters will need to get through their fights before then. Golovkin has a WBA ordered fight against Daniel Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) on March 18 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Golovkin might also fight a unification fight after that against WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders on June 10. Canelo has a catch-weight fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on May 6 in the super middleweight division. Canelo has a far better chance of winning his fight against Chavez Jr. than Golovkin does against the 29-year-old Jacobs, who is still very much in the prime of his career.
With Chavez Jr, you can’ really say he’s still in his prime because he’s slowed his own career by rarely fighting since his loss to Sergio Martinez in 2012.
“Yes, absolutely,” Gomez said to RingTV.com about whether Canelo will be facing Golovkin in September. “That has been the plan for a while.”
We’ll have to see how the negotiations go between Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler and Golden Boy Promotions for Canelo. The negotiations have already gotten off to a bad start with Golden Boy giving Golovkin a flat fee of $15 million without letting him get a percentage of the revenue. When a fighter isn’t given a percentage deal, the A-side negotiators are playing hardball negotiations.
You can interpret it to mean that they don’t see the fighter as being popular enough to be given a percentage deal. It also can be analyzed to mean that they’re not particularly bothered if they don’t get the fight. Golovkin might need to move on and forget about Canelo.
I don’t know if Golden Boy and Canelo’s stance will ever change with regard to them not giving Golovkin the percentage deal that he wants. Golovkin can still have a good career and make a lot of money even without Canelo, and vice a versa. Canelo will still have a good career without Golovkin. I don’t know how popular Canelo will get though without him facing someone like Golovkin.
It doesn’t look like Canelo is ever going to be a crossover star like Floyd Mayweather Jr., Manny Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya all were. Those guys became crossover stars because they took risky fights during their careers. Canelo has only taken two risky fights during his entire career and that was against Mayweather and Erislandy Lara.
You can’t call Canelo’s fight against Miguel Cotto a risky fight due to the advanced age of Cotto and the huge size advantage that Canelo had. Canelo and Cotto looked like they were two divisions apart on the night of the fight. Canelo was so much bigger than Cotto.
Golovkin can take the flat fee from Canelo if he wants to get the biggest payday of his career, but he won’t be able to share equally in the pay-per-view money that he helps bring in for the fight. If he feels that’s an unfair deal, then he’ll have to move on and look in another direction for fights.
Golovkin won’t make the kind of money he could get against Canelo. Likewise, Canelo won’t be able to make the money he would get against Golovkin. Canelo’s fight against Chavez Jr. likely won’t make huge money because the fight is perceived to be a mismatch by boxing fans.