By Dan Ambrose: Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions isn’t worried about whether he’ll be able to negotiate a third fight between his fighter Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin and Saul Canelo Alvarez, as he feels that the Golden Boy star needs the third fight with GGG so that he can show that fans that he can win without help from the judges.
Canelo’s two previous fights against Golovkin (38-1-1, 34 KOs) were controversial matches with fans believing that GGG deserve the victory in the first fight in 2017, and at least a draw in the second one last September. Loeffler thinks that the pressure from the boxing public will lead to Canelo giving Golovkin a third fight sooner or later, and he might be right. However, what Loeffler isn’t saying is that the money that Canelo can make fighting Golovkin a third time will be hard for him to resist.
Canelo might not like the idea of facing the other middleweights in the division for less money than he can make fighting Golovkin a third time. When Canelo looks at the sea of difficult options available for him at middleweight, each of them capable of giving him major problems for less money than he can fighting GGG a third time, then he might push for the trilogy fight as soon as possible.
“Triple G is always up to fight Canelo. We feel that he beat him twice,” Loeffler said to ESPN Desports. “There is no reason why he wouldn’t beat him a third time. We feel that Canelo needs Triple G more than Triple G needs Canelo, because Canelo still needs to prove to the fans that he beat him fair and square, not just on the judges’ scorecards,” Loeffler told ESPN Deportes.
Loeffler clearly believes that Golovkin has already beaten Canelo twice, and that a third fight between them will be nothing more than win number three for his fighter GGG. I’m not sure that Canelo feels the same way, as he seems to think that he’s beaten Golovkin twice already, even though the judges scored the first fight a 12 round draw last year.
Loeffler made the mistake of giving the green light to let the GGG-Canelo rematch take place in Las Vegas after the first fight ended in controversy in that city. Canelo was viewed as having given a gift draw by the judges last year in a fight that Golovkin appeared to win by four rounds. Given the controversy surrounding the scoring by the Nevada State Athletic Commission assigned judges last year in the Canelo-Golovkin fight on September 16, 2017, it was strange that Loeffler would agree to let the rematch take place in not only the same city of Las Vegas, but also in the venue at the T-Mobile Arena. It was a major blunder in Loeffler agreeing to the second fight taking place in the same place as the first.
“It was a great fight the first time, it was a better fight the second time and I think the third fight might even be the best fight,” Loeffler said. “We’ll see, whatever we can work out. I’ve been in regular contact with [Alvarez’s promoter] Golden Boy. We’ll see if we can work out a third fight.”
The first Canelo vs. Golovkin fight was NOT a great fight. Loeffler is way off in saying the fight was great. It was a boxing chess match, with Canelo getting jabbed frequently by the longer-armed Golovkin from the outside. Canelo did a lot of movement in the fight to escape the pressure from Golovkin, and that took away from the fight even more. Like in the rematch, Canelo gassed out in the 4th round and did very little in the last eight rounds of the fight. Golovkin landed the bigger shots, and dominated for the last eight rounds. Unfortunately, the Nevada judges saw a different fight than the boxing public, as they gave Canelo a draw.
It would be a huge benefit for Golovkin if Loeffler would schedule a fight against someone like Jermall Charlo or Demetrius Andrade before he starts talking about a third fight with Canelo. Loeffler is negotiating from a position of weakness with Golden Boy Promotions due to Golovkin’s loss to Canelo last September. It doesn’t matter that the fight was seen as a controversial win for Canelo. Golden Boy Promotions will insist that the fight wasn’t controversial, and they’ll likely give Loeffler a take it leave it offer, which is what De La Hoya has already said he’ll be doing. Golovkin needs a big win over someone to rebuild his credibility as a top fighter in the middleweight division. A victory over one of these fighters would greatly help Golovkin’s ability to get a deal for the Canelo rematch:
– Jermall Charlo
– Billy Joe Saunders
– Jermell Charlo
– Jarrett Hurd
– Daniel Jacobs
– Sergiy Derevyanchenko
– Demetrius Andrade
– Rob Brant
– Erislandy Lara
“If Golovkin wants to fight, I already have in my mind a set price of what he’s going to be worth,” De La Hoya said to Fighthub in discussing a Canelo vs. GGG trilogy fight. “If he [Golovkin] doesn’t want to fight him for a price we say, then go fight somebody else. I can’t say [what the set offer is for GGG], but look, Canelo is happy where he’s at,” De La Hoya said.
The way that De La Hoya is talking, it doesn’t look like they see Golovkin as having any leverage whatsoever in the negotiations for a third fight with Canelo. In other words, De La Hoya, Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez and Canelo are all satisfied with the win over Golovkin last month, and they’re not feeling any pressure like they need to put together a third fight in order to validate themselves to the boxing public. If anything, they come across as completely satisfied with the win over Golovkin, and they’re moving on to other fighters like Rocky Fielding, who Canelo will be fighting on December 15 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Canelo (50-1-2, 34 KOs) and Fielding (27-1, 15 KOs) have started their respective training camps to prepare for their December 15 fight at MSG Garden in New York. Fielding, 31, will be defending his World Boxing Association World super middleweight title against the 28-year-old Canelo. Golden Boy Promotions negotiated a 10 lb rehydration clause for the fight. Both fighters will need to be no higher than 178 lbs on the morning of the fight for the secondary weigh-in. This is a good thing for Canelo, since it will prevent the bigger 6’2″ Fielding from rehydrating 100% until after the second weigh-in. It might also force Fielding to come in lighter for the fight than he otherwise would have if there wasn’t a 10 pound rehydration clause. Knowing now that Canelo will be getting a huge handicap in the fight, it may cheapen his victory in the eyes of the boxing fans if he beats a weight drained Fielding instead of him being fully hydrated and at his best. As the B-side fighter, Fielding wasn’t in the position to reject a 10 lb rehydration clause, even though he’s technically the world champion and Canelo the challenger. In boxing, popularity counts for much more than world title belts unfortunately.
This will be Fielding’s first defense of his WBA ‘regular’ 168 lb title he captured last July in stopping champion Tyron Zeuge in Germany. The WBA is sanctioning the Canelo-Zeuge fight as a world title match despite Canelo not being ranked in the super middleweight division. Canelo fought for the first and only time at super middleweight a year ago in defeating former World Boxing Council middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision in May 2017 in a catchweight fight at 164.5 lbs.
“We finished an intense week. We have eight more,” Fielding said on his Instagram account.
Canelo started his training camp in San Diego, California, shortly after receiving his WBC and Ring Magazine middleweight titles last week. It was a big week for Mexican star Canelo, as he also signed a 5-year, 11-fight, $365 million deal with the streaming service DAZN.