By Sean Jones: During today’s news conference for his June 8th catch-weight fight against unbeaten Steve Rolls (19-0, 10 KOs), former IBF/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (38-1-1, 34 KOs) addressed Saul Canelo Alvarez’s recent comments about not wanting to fight him unless he had a world title in his possession.
Golovkin says Canelo is wrong to be talking like that, because the two of them must face each other again for a trilogy fight whether there’s a title on the line or not.
“I think Canelo is not correct to say that. We have to see what’s going to happen. I’m hoping to fight him, title or not,” Golovkin said.
If Canelo (51-1-2, 35 KOs) is stubborn about it and refuses to fight GGG unless he has a title in his possession, he’s going to put DAZN in a bad position where they may need to talk with him about it. DAZN are paying Alvarez, 28, a great deal of money with their 11-fight, 5-year, $365 million contract. For Canelo to get to the end of that contract, he’ll need to be able to swallow his pride and take fights that he might not want to agree to, starting with the trilogy contest against GGG. This is a fight the boxing public wants to see.
Canelo is doing well in his second fight with DAZN in facing IBF middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs on May 4, but his first match with the streaming giant last December was a disappointment against Rocky Fielding. That could have been GGG that Canelo fought instead moving of moving up to 168 to defeat arguably the weakest champion in the division in Fielding. Canelo needs to look at it from DAZN’s perspective. They’re paying him massive amounts of money for each fight, and they obviously want him to face GGG a third time.
Alvarez needs to take a grown up look at what they obviously want, and make sure he’s doing the right thing by facing GGG a third time. It’s hard work obviously for Canelo to fight GGG each time, but that’s why he’s getting the big bucks by DAZN. If Canelo doesn’t want to fight Golovkin unless he has a title, then perhaps he can move up to light heavyweight and take on WBO champion Sergey Kovalev for his title like he’s been talking about. Kovalev and his co-promoters at Top Rank would likely love the idea of a fight involving Canelo Alvarez at 175.
As long as there’s no conditions involved, like rehydration clause like the one we’re seeing with the Jacobs fight. That’s a 10 pound rehydration clause, which means neither fighter can be above 170 lbs. on the morning of the Canelo vs. Jacobs unification fight on May 4. If Canelo uses a rehydration clause for a fight against Kovalev, it would sound like a weak move on his part to try and gain an advantage over him. If Canelo can’t beat Kovalev in his own weight class, there’s no point in trying to weaken him, is there?
“It’s why Gennady signed with DAZN, it’s the clearest path to that. I don’t think the titles are going to make a difference. Both GGG and Canelo are above needing a title at this point in their career,” Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler said on Monday at the GGG vs. Rolls kickoff news conference in talking about a third fight with Canelo Alvarez.
Of course, titles no longer mean anything at all when fighters get to the level where Golovkin and Canelo are both at. Canelo’s insistence that GGG have a world title before he agrees to fight him again would be like him telling Floyd Mayweather Jr. that he needn’t ask for a second fight against him until he comes back and proves himself worthy by winning a world title first. Canelo setting up a condition for Golovkin to meet for him to get a trilogy fight against him just sounds like he’s trying to put him in a one-down position even before the negotiations have begun. If Golovkin were to agree to jump through this hoop that Canelo is asking him to jump through in order to face him, you can bet there would be additional hoops that the Kazakh would need to leap through to get the fight. The purse split for the fight, and of course the location of the fight would likely need to be slanted in Canelo’s favor. What that means is GGG would probably need to agree to a less than 50-50 purse split, as well as him having the third fight at the same venue as the first two fights between them at the T-Mobile Arena in Ls Vegas, Nevada.
Speaking of venues, it sounds like Loeffler isn’t going to be on board with having GGG fight Canelo at the T-Mobile again. Now that both guys are getting huge money with their contracts with DAZN, there’s no need for the third fight to take place at the T-Mobile Arena. It can take place in a neutral venue in New York, where neither fighter has an advantage with the judging.
“Canelo fought here in December, he sold out MSG, Gennady has fought here and he built his fight here in MSG. I think the third fight will come down to economics,” Loeffler said in talking about the venue for the third Canelo vs. Golovkin fight. “And location will be a part of the negotiations, because now, he’s not obligated to fight in Vegas.”
It wouldn’t be surprising if Canelo and Golden Boy draw a line in the sand and refuse to make the third Avarez vs. Golovkin fight unless it comes right back to Las Vegas at the T-Mobile Arena. Canelo is unbeaten when he’s fighting at that venue, and a lot of boxing fans think he should be 0-2 for his two fights with GGG that took place at that location. Canelo is fighting Jacobs at the T-Mobile, and you got to believe that he likely wouldn’t have agreed to the fight if Jacobs had resisted fighting him there.
Golovkin thinks Canelo is going to have a really hard time for his fight against Jacobs in less than two weeks. GGG sees that as a 50-50 fight.
“I think it’s very hard to predict,” Golovkin said about the Canelo vs. Jacobs fight on May 4 on DAZN at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. “It’s going to be a very important fight for the middleweight division and for boxing in general. It’s pretty even keel. Everyone has a chance. Everyone has a possibility to win…this is even stuff,” Golovkin said.
It would be a shocker if Jacobs is able to beat Canelo. It would be an even bigger surprise if he defeats him by a decision.
Golovkin will be fighting super middleweight Rolls in a catch-weight at 164 pounds on June 8 on DAZN at Madison Square Garden in New York. The fight is scheduled for 12 rounds. There are no titles on the line.