By Eric Baldwin: WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (24-0, 12 KOs) is still very much a possibility for Gennady Golovkin’s next fight, says Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions. He’s still interested in putting a unification fight together between the two of them. However, Loeffler is still in negotiations with Golden Boy Promotions President Eric Gomez for a big mega-fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez for September. Loeffler says he should know in the next 2 weeks whether that fight will happen in September or not.
Loeffler doesn’t have 2 weeks to wait on the Saunders fight because he and his promoter Frank Warren want a decision to be made before that time. They don’t want to be hanging in the wind, waiting for a fight that may never happen against Golovkin.
“It’s always been Gennady’s dream to unify the division,” said Loeffler to K.O Artist Sports about Golovkin wanting to face Billy Joe Saunders to try and win his WBO middleweight title. “He’s had a really hard time getting other champions to fight him. But now if he can make a fight with Saunders, it would be accomplishing his dream if he can beat Billy Joe. But at the same time, it’s a huge fight with Canelo. So I think the win over Daniel Jacobs opens up a lot of doors for him. A lot of people think he’s getting old, people think he’s slowing down. That will make it easier to try and make some of these match-ups that people have been avoiding,” said Loeffler.
It sounds like Loeffler is confused which way he should go for Gennady’s next fight. The decision be made for him if he doesn’t make a choice. Saunders will move on. He can’t wait until Canelo fights on May 6 against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. to find out if he gets the Golovkin fight or not. That’s too much time out of the ring for just a possibility of a fight for Saunders. He’s needs something concrete, and it does not look like Loeffler is in the position to give a guarantee that Gennady will face him on June 10.
“It was a tremendous show. We doubled the revenue from the [David] Lemieux fight, and that was huge for the ticket sales,” said Loeffler to Fighthub.com about the Golovkin vs. Jacobs fight. “The pay-per-view increased by 20,000 units, 20,000 buys for his first fight over Lemieux in his first pay-per-view, and we were going up against the NCAA tournament. It wasn’t a perfect date to pick for pay-per-view, but that’s a date that worked for Madison Square Garden. That’s Gennady’s home,” said Loeffler.
Golovkin’s fight with Jacobs brought in 170,000 pay-per-view buys on HBO PPV. Yes, it was an increase of 20,000 buys from Golovkin’s only other venture into PPV against David Lemieux in October 2015, but it still wasn’t the huge number that Golovkin needed. Golovkin almost lost the fight to Daniel Jacobs. It was close enough to where it could have gone either way. Loeffler has put a spin on the fight, making it seem like it was a good thing that Gennady almost lost. Believe me, it’s not a good thing for Gennady and Loeffler that he almost lost to Jacobs and looked bad. It could mean that fewer boxing fans will be excited at seeing Gennady and Canelo Alvarez fight each other in the future, whenever that happens.
A big part of the reason why the boxing public wanted to see Canelo and Golovkin fight was because they thought Triple G was invincible or close to it. But now that Gennady has been exposed by Jacobs, the fans now know that he’s not invincible. He’s vulnerable and slow of hand and he lacks explosiveness on his punches. It’s not nearly as interesting to look forward to a Canelo-Golovkin fight now compared to the past. Canelo’s own popularity has taken a hit with the poor match-making done for him, and how bad he’s looked in fights against Erislandy Lara and Floyd Mayweather Jr. The fans know that Canelo isn’t the best and he won’t be the best even if he beats Gennady. Canelo will always be a flat-footed fighter with poor stamina, and has problems against boxers with good jabs.
“I think that was posturing by Oscar [De La Hoya],” said Loeffler about De La Hoya saying that if Golovkin faces Billy Joe Saunders in June, it would jeopardize the Canelo fight. “I’ve been in regular contact with Eric Gomez, and we’re just trying to figure out a way to make the fight work. If it were up to us, we would have done the fight last year. It’s pretty clear that Gennady wants the fight. He has respect for him [Canelo]. They sparred with one another. Canelo was up in Big Bear with Abel [Sanchez] and Gennady years ago. For what he did, as far as sparring, he has respect for Canelo. Canelo has accomplished quite a bit in his career. Gennady would have preferred to challenge for the WBC title when Canelo had it, and then Canelo vacating it. Look, we can’t control what other fighters do. If we can make the fight like Oscar said, then it was only a year that he had to wait. Hopefully, we can make it for this year. Gennady got past his step [against Jacobs]. Canelo has to fight on May 6th against Chavez Jr. That’s a tough fight for him. I think Chavez is going to really rise to the occasion just like Jacobs did. Chavez has always had a lot of talent, but as far as preparation and training, it always hasn’t been the best. If you have a very well prepared Chavez Jr., I think you’ll see a tremendous match-up. I think that’ll be a great fight for the fans,” said Loeffler.
Canelo vs. Golovkin will get made even if Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. upsets the redheaded Golden Boy Promotions star. There will just be a delay on the making of the Canelo-Golovkin fight if he gets beaten by Chavez Jr. Canelo is small, and Chavez Jr. can win this fight because two of a kind.
Loeffler says he wants to match Golovkin against light heavyweight Andre War in the near future. Ward shouldn’t get his hopes up because that fight may never happen. Golovkin is too small for the super middleweight division. You have to ask the question of Golovkin is running from if he moves up to 168. It could be the arrival of Jermall Charlo to the 160 lb. division has Golovkin wanting to clear out of the middleweight division before he’s exposed by him. Demetrius Andrade and Erislandy Lara could also soon by moving up to 160. Golovkin leaving the division just before they make the move up in weight would have you wondering whether it’s just a coincident or is it a planned thing for Golovkin to avoid dangerous fights.
“We have to see what happens with his rematch with Kovalev,” said Loeffler to secondsout.com about Andre Ward. “Ramirez is fighting in April, and Bob [Arum] been very proactive in trying to make the fight. I think that’s a great fight. We’ve always wanted to go to Texas with Gennady. If we could do a fight with Ramirez in Texas, that’s a tremendous match-up. We’ll have to see what the options are,” said Loeffler.
“When fighters think they have no chance to win a fight, that’s when they want crazy amounts of money,” said Loeffler. “Hopefully, Canelo is inspired by the performance and that it gives him a glimmer of hope that he can win. We’re not taking anything away from Canelo. I have a lot of respect for him for what he’s accomplished in his career. The numbers in that fight will be Triple G and Canelo’s biggest paydays of their careers. Whenever you have a financial structure like that, it’s working out all the details. Fights like that have so many different revenue streams. You have to go through each one and make it so that it’s fair to each side. If the fight can happen, we’ll certainly work with Eric Gomez to make it happen,” said Loeffler.