By Dan Ambrose: Middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez says that they plan on moving up to super middleweight after one 1 or 2 more fights. Sanchez says Golovkin will fight in June, hopefully against Billy Joe Saunders or Tureano Johnson. After that fight, Sanchez says they’ll see if they can get the fight against the “Redhead,” Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, and if they can’t get that fight, then they’ll be moving up to 168 to begin campaigning in that weight class.
Sanchez says the objective at super middleweight is to win all 4 of the titles to unify them in the same way that Golovkin has been working on in the 160 lb. division. Sanchez there will be no point for Golovkin to remain at 160 after he picks up the final middleweight title not in his possession, other than to fight Canelo. But he says they will not stick around and wait if they can’t get the fight with Canelo this year.
They plan on moving up in weight and moving on. Golovkin won’t stick around to chase Canelo and Saunders if he can’t get fights against them. There’s no point in Golovkin being stuck making title defenses against mostly obscure top contenders one after another at middleweight if he can’t get fights Saunders and Canelo. Golovkin will move on to his next objective in capturing all the belts at 168. Sometimes it’s not possible to make fights due to fighters wanting too much money. Golovkin can’t waste his career chasing fighters that either don’t want to fight him or want too much money.
It’s unclear what the deal is with Canelo and Saunders. Some boxing fans believe that Canelo and his promoters just want to string the Golovkin fight out until he’s so old that he has no chance whatsoever to beat him. Other fans believe that Golden Boy wants to continue to string the Golovkin fight out so that it artificially keeps Canelo’s PPV numbers higher than they otherwise would be due to boxing fans believe that the fight will one day happen. The thought is Golden Boy will name drop Golovkin’s name frequently by saying that a fight against Canelo is just around the corner so that the fans will keep buying Canelo’s fights against over-matched opposition like Liam Smith, Amir Khan, Miguel Cotto and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on pay-per-view. If Golovkin is no longer available to fight Canelo due to him having lost patience with the game and moved up to 168, then it could negatively impact the PPV numbers for the redheaded Golden Boy star. That doesn’t mean that Golovkin’s name still won’t be name dropped anyway by Golden Boy. It’ll just make it less believable to the boxing fans that a fight between Canelo and Golovkin will ever happen once Triple G officially moves up in weight.
“Once he has all the belts there’s no reason for him to stay there,” said trainer Abel Sanchez to K.O Artist Sports about Golovkin. “If the fight with Billy Joe Saunders gets made, which they’re talking about making in June, then his intentions are to move up because he’s done what he wanted. If they’re able to come up with an agreement that Gennady likes to fight the redhead, then we’ll fight the redhead. But if not, we’re going to go on and move to 168,” said Sanchez.
What this means for Canelo is he might need to move up to 168 if he chooses to face Golovkin in the future. That’s if the fight doesn’t get made this year. It doesn’t look like it will based on the comments from Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions. It appears that he may elect to tie Golovkin’s recent PPV numbers from his fight with Daniel Jacobs to what his percentage split for a Canelo fight should be. If that’s what De La Hoya chooses to do, then he might be making a mistake. Golovkin is prideful, and he might not agree to take considerably lower numbers than Canelo when it comes to the revenue split for the fight. Golovkin will want a fair deal, and if he’s not getting one, he’ll move on. If Canelo and Golden Boy wants the fight with Golovkin in the future, then they’ll need to come back with an offer that is to his liking.
With Golovkin moving up in weight to 168 after 1 to 2 more fights, it’s not good news for Daniel Jacobs. It means that if he wants a rematch with Golovkin, he may need to move up in weight to super middleweight, and start campaigning as a contender in that division. It appears that Golovkin’s focus after the Saunders and Canelo fights is to win all of the world titles at super middleweight. There’s no reason for Golovkin to go backwards with his career to fight a guy that isn’t part of his plans to win all the belts at 168. Fighting a rematch with Jacobs would make sense if their fight last week had brought in a huge number of PPV buys on HBO or if Golovkin had lost. Since neither of those things happened, it makes little sense for Golovkin to stall his career out to fight Jacobs again, especially if he’s not going to acknowledge when he’s been beaten. Jacobs still believes he won the fight. It might be that Jacobs will have that same stance if Golovkin beats him again by a decision. We don’t know whether Jacobs is one of those types of fighters that won’t acknowledge when he’s been beaten by a decision. If Golovkin gets stuck fighting Jacobs over and over again just because he and his boxing fans say he won each time, then it becomes a joke to continue in fighting him. The judges made the decision by Golovkin the victory over Jacobs, and there’s no point in fighting him further unless he’s holding one of the titles at 168 or is in the position to fight Golovkin for one of the belts in the future. It doesn’t appear that Jacobs has any intention of moving up to 168, so the chapter on him is likely finished for good as far as Golovkin goes. There are plenty of other fighters at 168 that Golovkin can fight that will run around the ring in the same way that Jacobs did. Golovkin can likely get the same PPV numbers if not better fighting the top guys at 168 that he got for the Jacobs fight.
“He wants to fight in June. I it’s not Saunders, then it could be Tureano Johnson,” said Sanchez. “If the guys are bigger and can take it, better for us as fans. We get a better fight. Zurdo has made comments that he wants to fight him. Zurdo is the guy that has been more boisterous, so there’s a possibility. I’d like to see him [Golovkin] unify the 168 pound division like he did in the 160 lb. division. We’ll see who it is in June. Eventually, we’re going to move up to a new weight where they’re going to be bigger and they’re going to be able to take the punch. It’s beneficial in his mind that he knows he can go 12 and it’s not a problem. He was strong in the 12th [against Jacobs]. He was able to do things he wanted to do,” said Sanchez.
Tureano Johnson would be a great fight for Golovkin if they can’t get Saunders to agree to the terms for a fight in June.