By Jim Dower: It’s been revealed by Dan Rafael that the Hail Mary play by the MGM Grand executives to make save the Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin 2 fight was the increase in ticket prices for the September 15th fight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Golovkin (38-0-1, 34 KOs) wanted a 55-45 purse split for the rematch with Canelo, but Golden Boy Promotions were only willing to offer him a 42 ½ percent increase.
They didn’t want to increase Golovkin’s offer to 45% of the revenue despite the fact that he’s the IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion and Canelo, 27, little more than a former two division world champion and Ring champion.
Golovkin, 36, wasn’t going to take the fight unless he received the offer that he was looking to get with near parity in the money split. So, the MGM Grand executives reportedly came up with the answer to get the fight made. The ticket prices for the Canelo-GGG II rematch have still yet to be announced, but the ticket prices for the first fight are as follows: $5000, $2500, $2000, $1500, $800, $700, $500 and $300.
Increased ticket prices will hurt the average fan, which will need to pay more to see the fight. It would have been better for Canelo and Golden Boy to simply give Golovkin the 55-45 split that he was asking for instead of the MGM Grand having to save the day to make the fight.
Golovkin already beat Canelo last September, but he wasn’t given the win by the assigned judges that worked the fight. Now Golvokin is going back to the same venue at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, but it’ll be a different set of three judges assigned by the Nevada Commission. There’s no word yet whether the PPV costs will increase to help accommodate the purse split for Canelo-GGG II on September 15.
If this is the only way that Golovkin could get Golden Boy Promotions to get him the 55-45 split that he was asking for in the rematch with Canelo, then it’s kind of sad. Golovkin isn’t being greedy by asking for a 55-45 split for the fight. After all, GGG was given a 70-30 split for the first fight and offered a 65-35 split from the agreed on May 5th rematch that never took place.
If Golovkin had walked away from the Canelo fight, he very likely would have gotten Golden Boy to bend to his wishes to give him the 45 percent that he was asking for.