Canelo-GGG II negotiations begin next week

By Boxing News - 05/08/2018 - Comments

Image: Canelo-GGG II negotiations begin next week

By Sean Jones: Negotiations for a rematch between Saul Canelo Alvarez and three-belt middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin will begin next week for a rematch on September 15. That’s the fight that both fighters want next.

Whether the two fighter’s promoters can successfully negotiate the rematch will depend on both sides having their conditions met. Golovkin’s team is likely going to want to make sure Canelo is tested in the randomly for PEDs in the months leading up to the rematch and not just in the last 2 months.

Canelo doesn’t agree to that, it could be a show stopper. Canelo will need to be willing to be tested moving forward for the tiebreaker to take place between him and GGG. Golden Boy and Canelo will likely insist that the rematch take place at the venue of their choice. That’s a given. Canelo remains the A-side in the negotiations despite having tested positive for clenbuterol and being the challenger in the fight.

Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler is trying to work out a deal to put off his IBF mandatory fight against Sergey Kovalev until after the rematch with Canelo on September 15. The IBF will make their decision soon whether they’ll let Golovkin do this. At the very worst, the IBF could strip Golovkin of his belt if he doesn’t make the fight with Derevyanchenko.

Canelo fought Golovkin last September in a fight that was ruled a 12 round draw in Las Vegas, Nevada. The fight was scored so badly by the set of judges that worked the fight that the boxing fans have been asking for a rematch ever since, but with a different set of judges. There was supposed to be a Canelo-GGG rematch last Saturday night on May 5, but Canelo was popped twice for the banned PED clenbuerol, and given a suspension of six months by the Nevada State Commission.

Canelo had insisted that the rematch take place in the same city and same venue as the first fight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Golovkin said it was like “going back to the scene of a crime,” but he reluctantly agreed. However, Canelo’s positive tests or the performance enhancing drug clenbuterol prevented the rematch from taking place.

Now the two fighter’s management will be looking to negotiate for a third time. Canelo has been quiet about where he wants the rematch to take place. While he was eager to have the second fight take place in Vegas, he might not be so happy about the Nevada Commission giving him a suspension of six months despite his protests that he had eaten tainted clebuterol filled meat. That excuse didn’t fly with the Commission, who suspended him anyway.

We’ll see next week whether Canelo still wants the second fight with GGG to take place in the state of Nevada. Financially, Canelo can probably make more money fighting in Las Vegas than if he were to fight anywhere else. So if it’s money that he’s after, he can likely get more by fighting in Vegas. The thing is he has can’t keep testing positive for clenbuterol because his meat excuses won’t work. They’ll keep suspending him. and the next suspension will likely be a 1-year suspension, not the soft six months they gave him for his 2 positive tests for clenbuterol last February

Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler will be meeting with Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy next week to see if they can come to an agreement for a second fight, which will likely take place in Las Vegas, Nevada. There’s no reason to believe that Loeffler and Eric Gomez and Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy can’t come to an agreement, as they’ve negotiated successfully on two other occasions. Golovkin and Canelo’s second fight that was scheduled on May 5 was canceled after the Mexican star came up positive on two tests by VADA. Canelo tested positive for clenbuterol, which he subsequently blamed on having eaten tainted beef in Mexico. The Canelo-GGG fight was still canceled and Canelo given a six-month suspension by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Golovkin stayed on the date and knocked out Vanes Martirosyan in the 2nd round at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.

The plan is for GGG’s promoter Loeffler to meet with Golden Boy next week, and then with HBO, the cable distributers of the fight that will be sold on PPV. The meeting with HBO won’t take place unless an agreement is made between Loeffler and Golden Boy for the Canelo-GGG rematch. Canelo says he wants the rematch with Golovkin, but Golden Boy is interested in matching Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan up against him as well. Golden Boy also has former IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux as an option as well for Canelo. Obviously, O’Sullivan and Lemieux won’t interest the casual and hardcore boxing fans in the U.S, as those two fighters are viewed as flawed fighters and not among the best in the middleweight division. Lemieux was just beaten by WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders in an embarrassingly easy fashion. O’Sullivan has been facing weak opposition since being knocked out by Chris Eubank Jr. in the 7th round in 2015.

“The next week will be when I meet with Golden Boy to discuss the fight with Canelo, and I hope to also meet with HBO,” Loeffler said to ESPN Deportes.

GGG said last week to Yahoo Sports News that there’s only a “10 percent chance” of a rematch with Canelo taking place. Golovkin was upset and still is upset about Canelo testing positive for clenbuterol, and he’s angry about the lack of follow-up testing since his suspension started. Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez said that the once the Nevada Commission handed down the six-month suspension, they lost jurisdiction over the case, and they couldn’t force Canelo to be tested for drugs.

Sanchez is surprised that Canelo hasn’t already enrolled with a drug testing agency like VADA to have around the clock testing done so that he could prove to the boxing world that he’s indeed a clean fighter and not just someone who says a clean fighter. It just looks incredibly bad that Canelo hasn’t voluntarily agreed to start testing yet, because 1 entire month has elapsed since the last time he was tested in the first week of April. Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy say the rematch with GGG is at the top of the list, and they believe that their fighter will win this time because of the way he came back in a desperate fashion in the last three rounds. Canelo fought well in round 12 against GGG, doing enough to edge that round. But in the 10th and 11th, Golovkin was the doing most of the work, but the judges gave those rounds to Canelo anyway, which was obviously strange. But it was his venue, and when you’re a visitor like Golovkin was, you sometimes must go way over the norm to get a decision over a home fighter.

World Boxing Council president Mauricio Sulaiman says he’s supportive of the Canelo-GGG 2 fight taking place, and he’s not going to stand in the way of letting that fight happen. WBC mandatory challenger Jermall Charlo recently beat Hugo Centeno Jr. to earn the WBC interim middleweight title. Sulaiman isn’t going to order Golovkin to take that fight.

“On our part, the WBC has done everything possible to ensure that important fights take place, that’s why an interim championship was held with Jermall Charlo, it has not been like that with other organizations, but let’s see what happens, the clamor general is the second fight between Golovkin and Canelo, and then we will see the mandatory,” Sulaiman said to ESPN Deportes.

So, it looks like Sulaiman is going to wait for the second GGG vs. Canelo fight to take place before he orders the winner to fight WBC mandatory challenger Jermall Charlo. I hate to be a fortune teller, but I’m predicting now that if Canelo somehow beats Golovkin in the rematch, he’ll drop the WBC belt like a bad habit right away rather defend it against Charlo. That’s IF the WBC doesn’t let Canelo and Golovkin fight each other in a rubber match right away in their next fight after that. Sulaiman would have the perfect excuse for making Charlo wait a little while longer. The interest in a third fight between Canelo and Golovkin will be out of this world no matter who wins the rematch on September 15. As far as Canelo defending the WBC title against Charlo, I don’t see it happening. I think Canelo will treat the WBC title like a hot potato and get rid of it as fast as he can rather than defend against the dangerous 27-year-old Charlo. This is a guy that Canelo wait out until he’s old.