By Sean Jones: Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez says the Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin rematch is close to being finalized, and he’s NOT thinking about the Billy Joe Saunders fight for his fighter Canelo.
The focus for Golden Boy is to make the Canelo-GGG rematch, says Gomez. There’s more money for Canelo to fight Golovkin on HBO PPV than there is for him to fight Saunders, who isn’t well-known in the States, and who lacks the crowd-pleasing style of fighting that Golden Boy needs for a successful PPV.
”Our main goal is the rematch [with Golovkin], not thinking of Sounders,” said Eric Gomez to Lance Pugmire of the latimes.com.
Saunders’ fighting style is all wrong for Canelo anyway. That would be a bad style match-up for Canelo, as he would have try and cut off the ring on Saunders all night long. Saunders was constantly in motion in his fight with David Lemieux last Saturday. Lemieux couldn’t catch Saunders. Canelo is built the same way as Lemieux, and is around the same height as him. It would be bad on Canelo to have to chase Saunders for 12 rounds. Nothing good could come of that fight for Canelo.
Even if he wins, he’ll look bad because he’d have to chase Saunders and eat jabs for a lot of rounds before he finally catches up to him. If the fight goes the distance, Canelo might lose or look bad enough for boxing fans to downgrade him. Saunders isn’t the type to stay quiet if he wins or loses. He’s going to talk trash either way, and it’s going to be a negative for Canelo. Golden Boy won’t go for that. They’ll likely put Saunders on ignore and focus on more crowd-pleasing opponents than Saunders.
WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (26-0, 12 KOs) beat Golden Boy Promotions fighter David Lemieux (38-4, 33 KOs) last Saturday night in a 12 round massacre in Laval, Quebec, Canada. Golden Boy had been waiting to see what happened with the Saunders-Lemieux fight before they made a move on finalizing the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight.
Lemieux, 28, would have been a viable option for Canelo for his May 5 fight if he’d beaten Saunders. Now that Saunders has won that fight, Lemieux is out of the equation for Canelo’s next fight on May 5. Unfortunately for Golden Boy and Lemieux, Saunders took care of him by beating him so soundly that there’s no way they can match him against Canelo. A fight between Canelo and Lemieux would sell in PPV after what happened last Saturday with Saunders doing a job on the Canadian.
The Canelo vs. Golovkin rematch could be done by the end of this week. Golden Boy and Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler are close to getting the fight across the finish line for next May.
”He’s traveling now, waiting for a reply,” said Gomez about Loeffler.
Canelo vs. Golovkin 2 is the fight that all of boxing wants to see. The fans don’t want to see Canelo fight Saunders.