By Sean Jones: Abel Sanchez says Gennady Golovkin is adamant about wanting a 50-50 purse split for the Saul Canelo Alvarez fight, and it’s up to him if he wants to agree to it or not. Sanchez says Canelo isn’t the pay-per-view draw that his promoter Oscar De La Hoya paints him out to be. Sanchez points out that when Canelo has drawn big numbers in the past, it was always when he was fighting other popular fighters like Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Miguel Cotto.
GGG’s promoter Tom Loeffler is still trying to work out a deal with Golden Boy, but he doesn’t sound nearly as optimistic as Oscar De La Hoya about the prospects of the Canelo vs. Golovkin rematch getting done. If not doesn’t get made, Loeffler says Billy Joe Saunders, Sergiy Derevyanchenko and Jermall Charlo would all be possibilities for Golovkin.
“First of all, this guy is not a draw either,” Sanchez said to VillianFy about Canelo Alvarez. “The only pay-per-view he drew against was [Miguel] Cotto and [Floyd] Mayweather, but he wasn’t the A-fighter. The other guy was the A-fighter, right? When he fought Liam Smith, that was 200 or 280 [buys]. That isn’t good numbers. The draw he’s making him out to be, he needs a second banana in order to get those million buys,” Sanchez said. ”That’s what Golovkin said [wanting a 50-50 percentage split for Canelo fight], and he’s adamant about it. If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen.”
Some people are talking about Canelo and Golden Boy’s greed with them wanting to get much money compared to GGG. The first purse split was 70-30 in favor of Canelo-GGG I on September 16 last year. Canelo wanted a 65-35 split for the May 5th rematch. Things fell apart from there with Canelo turning up positive twice for the banned substance clenbuterol. As such, the Canelo-GGG rematch was cancelled.
Canelo does good PPV numbers when he’s matched up against bigger names, but he’s failed when he’s fought non-stars. You can argue that Golovkin would have brought in similar PPV numbers as Canelo if he’d been given the chance to fight Floyd Mayweather, Miguel Cotto and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Since none of them were ever truly interested in fighting GGG, he didn’t get the opportunity to fight any of them.
Here are Canelo’s best PPV fights during his career:
• Floyd Mayweather vs. Canelo Alvarez – 2.2 million buys
• Gennady Golovkin vs. Canelo – 1.3 million buys
• Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Canelo – 1 million buys
• Miguel Cotto vs. Canelo – 938,000 buys
• Amir Khan vs. Canelo – 600,000 buys
• Alfredo Angulo vs. Canelo – 350,000 buys
• Erislandy Lara vs. Canelo – 325,000 buys
• Liam Smith vs. Canelo – 300,000 buys
In looking at those numbers, it’s clear that Canelo isn’t a huge PPV star as many boxing fans think he is. Mayweather was able to draw over 1 million buys even when facing lesser fighters. Canelo can’t do this. He needs to hitch a ride with popular fighter to bring in the PPV buys. Canelo is a draw, but he’s not the kind of draw that can bring in the boxing fans alone. Canelo clearly needs to be matched against a big enough name for the boxing fan order his fights on PPV. The problem is that Golden Boy matches Canelo against a lot of weaker opponents instead of the best.
”It’s up to them,” Sanchez said about whether Canelo and Golden Boy will agree to the 50-50 deal. ”Golovkin said what he wants. I think it’s fair for Golovkin to demand what he feels is entitled to and if they don’t want it, they don’t it. That’s the fight boxing needs. That’s the fight that’s expected from him. He didn’t beat Golovkin last time. Golovkin has said what he wants. It’s up to them,” Sanchez said about the 50-50 request that GGG made to Golden Boy for what he wants to fights Canelo.
It’s true that it’s up to Canelo to decide whether he wants the fight against Golovkin badly enough to want to agree to the 50-50 deal, because it doesn’t look like GGG is going to agree to the smaller purse split of 65-35 that Golden Boy wants. The boxing public expects Canelo to fight GGG after the controversial draw in their fist fight.
Sanchez doesn’t think too much of the talk of Canelo possibly moving up to super middleweight. Sanchez thinks a move like that would make Canelo look like he’s running from GGG, which would be hard to deny. Canelo’s success against super middleweight Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. last year might have given him the idea that he can compete in the 168lb division. If Canelo is matched selectively by Golden Boy against beatable fighters at super middleweight, he can probably have the same type of success as he’s had at 160. Canelo has only faced one good middleweight in his career in GGG, and that didn’t go too well for him. I think if Canelo moves to super middleweight, he’ll come undone if he faces David Benavidez, George Groves, Callum Smith, Jose Uzcategui or Gilberto Ramirez. Those fighters are too big for Canelo.
”So he’s running away from Golovkin,” Sanchez said when asked what he thinks of Canelo talking about wanting to move up to 168. ”That’s what he’s doing, of course. Canelo and De La Hoya aren’t going to dictate what Golovkin is going to do with his career. We’re going to do whatever is in the best interest of Golovkin. If it’s part of that, then it’s part of that. If not, then we’re going in a different direction,” Sanchez said.
If Canelo can’t make weight for 160, then maybe he should move up to super middleweight. I don’t think that’s the case. I believe that if Canelo moves up to super middleweight, it’ll be due to him not wanting to compete against Jermall Charlo, Sergiy Derevyanchenko, Demetrius Andrade and Daniel Jacobs. Getting beaten by Golovkin isn’t nearly as bad as it would for Canelo to lose to those fighters. Canelo can tell the boxing public that he lost to the best middleweight in the division if he loses to GGG. But if Canelo loses to the other top contenders in the division, then he’ll be fully exposed and seen as a fighter not good enough to beat the best.
”He’s not boxing,” Sanchez said about Canelo. ”There are a lot of other fighters out there. We’ll do what we have to do to continue with Golovkin. It’s difficult to negotiate with a guy that is going to take up six months out of your year and one great training camp and then the guy pulls out. He pulled out twice. How legitimate is that? I don’t know. He’s so injury prone. I don’t know why. It’s difficult for the guy that’s going to fight him, because you really don’t know what to expect. You prepare yourself for a certain date and then he pulls out. So it’s very difficult to train your fight,” Sanchez said.
It’s too risky for GGG to fight WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders. If Golovkin signs up for a unification fight against Saunders, he might need to walk away at some point if Saunders has more than one postponement. Golovkin can’t be devoting an entire year waiting for Saunders to get healthy enough to fight.
