By Jim Dower: Middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin ridiculed Saul Canelo Alvarez at Thursday’s press conference when asked about him by the media. Golovkin went off when he was reminded how Canelo apologized to the boxing fans, HBO and his sponsors for him pulling out of his May 5th rematch with Golovkin after testing positive twice for clenbuterol.
Canelo apologized to everyone but Golovkin, which seemed a little strange to the boxing fans because they felt he should have said something to him because he spent 8 months waiting for the rematch. Golovkin was told he couldn’t fight last December against Canelo because he wanted to rest until May 2018. Golovkin couldn’t take a fight to stay busy, so he missed out on eight months of his career including the chance for at least two paydays.
“Last time everybody said he’s huge Mexican style. In the last press conference, he said, ‘I can’t. I’m sorry. I apologize. It’s my fault.’ This is crazy,” Golovkin said about Canelo during Thursday’s press conference. “He’s not star. He’s not huge ambassador for boxing. He’s terrible man.”
Golovkin still isn’t happy how Canelo ran from him for 12 rounds instead of standing and fighting him like he said he would. The rematch would have likely been different if Canelo hadn’t pulled out of the fight.
The two positive tests for clenbuterol obviously didn’t help Canelo’s career in terms of his popularity. Additionally, the controversial 12 round draw Canelo received for the Golovkin fight last September also didn’t help his popularity, because he was seen as the lower of the fight by the fans.
“I feel very confident,” Golovkin said. “Why do you ask me this? I feel very comfortable. Canelo, remember last time he said, ‘I’m sorry. It’s my fault. Come on, get out of here.”
Golovkin will have to wait another 5 months for Canelo if he still wants to fight him again, which he obviously does. It’s too bad the middleweight division is so barren of stars, because Golovkin only has one guy he can fight to make a lot of money and that’s Canelo.
Golovkin still doesn’t have an opponent for his May 5th fight on Cinco de Mayo at the StubHub in Carson, California. It’s starting to look like Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler may need to scrap the fight date due to the promoter of his IBF mandatory challenger Sergiy Derevyanchenko pushing hard to have his fighter face Golovkin on 3 weeks’ notice on the date.
You don’t usually get promoters that are willing to throw their fighters into the ring with a champion on 3 weeks’ notice when they’re already locked in as the mandatory. But in this case, Dibella seems to be worried about his fighter Derevyanchenko having to wait a long time before he gets a title shot. Golovkin could give Dibella what he wants and take the fight with Derevyanchenko, but there would be only 3 weeks to market the fight to the boxing public. The tickets might not sell, and the fight would likely do poor numbers on HBO.
Loeffler has already pulled Golovkin’s fight off of HBO PPV and put it on regular HBO. But if Golovkin takes a no-name like Derevyanchenko, who the casual boxing fans aren’t familiar with, then it won’t bring in good ratings and won’t sell tickets. Martirosyan at least is from Southern California, and he can bring in a lot of his Armenian boxing fans to come see the fight with GGG. Derevyanchenko can’t do that.
“At some point, we’re going to run out of time…April 18th will answer a lot of questions,” Loeffler said at Thursday’s press conference. “There is no official announcement. Gennady has mentioned to me he wants to fight May 5th. We’re under the gun to save May 5th. “Gennady knows the importance of fighting May 5th. There are a lot of fighters that have called willing to fight Gennady. Vanes has expressed interest and he is from LA. We will see what we can work out. We are trying to come up with solutions. If there is an amicable deal with the IBF without Golovkin’s being stripped. The main goal is if Canelo is available for September. We don’t want to risk Gennady’s future. He wants to fight Canelo as soon as he able to get back in the ring. It’s the biggest fight in the sport of boxing,” Loeffler said.
Martirosyan is in a tough spot training and not knowing whether he’s going to get the Golovkin fight or not on May 5. Hopefully, Loeffler is able to find out soon whether Golovkin will be fighting on that date. It would be a shame of Martirosyan trains for nothing and doesn’t get the fight with GGG.
Golovkin is taking a lot of criticism from boxing fans for simply not taking the fight with Derevyanchenko on May 5, but that’s only 3 weeks for GGG to prepare for a fighter that normally would require a lot of training to get ready for him. There’s the risk involved, and then the fact that he’s not popular enough to help promote the fight in any real way. It would be just Golovkin that would be bringing in the boxing fans.
It wouldn’t be a good deal for Golovkin to take this fight on short notice. If the IBF insists on him taking the fight, then it looks like he’s going to scrap the idea of fighting on May 5th, which means he still wants to keep the IBF title. But if Golovkin fights Derevyanchenko in June, he’ll jeopardize his fight with Canelo. That’s too hard of a fight for Golovkin with just two months separating his fight against Canelo in September.
“May 5th. Biggest Day. Nobody wants to fight with me. Are you serious?” Golovkin said. “I feel great and I want to fight May 5th but this is a crazy situation for boxing.”
