By Mark Eisner: Saul Canelo Alvarez lost his IBF middleweight title on Thursday when his negotiations for his title defense against Sergiy Derevyachenko fizzled out with a fight not getting done. The International Boxing Federation subsequently stripped the 29-year-old Alvarez of his IBF middleweight title. The deadline had passed on Thursday afternoon without Golden Boy making a deal with Derevyanchenko’s promoters.
Once the deadline passed, Canelo was stripped of his title by the IBF. It was a situation where there were no winners. Canelo lost his title that he’d recently worked hard to win against Daniel Jacobs, and Derevyanchenko ends up not facing the superstar.
Derevyanchenko loses out on Canelo fight
This would have been a big deal for Derevyanchenko if he’d been able to fight Canelo. Instead, the Ukrainian fighter will need to fight someone else for the belt.
Canelo likely views this as a minor setback, since he’s the biggest name in the sport. It would depend on ends up with the IBF title. If Derevyanchenko, who has no fan base to speak of, it might not be worth it for Canelo to pursue the fight.
DAZN had recently approved Derevyanchenko, 33, as an opponent for Canelo, which would have led to the Mexican taking a hit on his normal $35 million per fight deal. Golden Boy Promotions attempted to work a deal with Derevyanchenko’s promoters.
They had several postponements of purse bids in order to try and get the fight with Derevyanchenko done. The Ukrainian’s promoters wanted to make the fight with Canelo happen, but the money wasn’t to their liking. Whether Derevyanchenko’s management ultimately regret their decision not to take the money Golden Boy Promotions was offering is unclear.
De La Hoya critical of Canelo being stripped of IBF title
“We are extremely disappointed at the IBF for forcing the world’s best fighter to relinquish his world title,” De La Hoya said. “And we have been in serious negotiations with Sergiy Derevyanchenko’s promoter. We offered his team an unprecedented amount of money for a fighter of his limited stature and limited popularity, but the truth is that I’m now certain they never had any intention of making a deal. But instead they wanted to force us to relinquish Canelo’s belt. This is an insult to boxing and more importantly an insult to the boxing fans of the world. This decision validates already existing concerns about the credibility of the IBF championship.”
De La Hoya sounds hopping mad at the IBF over Canelo being stripped of his belt.
Did Derevyanchenko price himself out of the Canelo fight?
Derevyanchenko’s promoters were rumored to be looking to get the same money that Daniel Jacobs recently got for his fight with Canelo last May, but it wasn’t going to happen. That’s not surprising, because Jacobs is a much better known fighter than Derevyanchenko, and he had the IBF middleweight title in his possession when he fought Alvarez. Derevyanchenko is the IBF mandatory, and he was recently beaten by Jacobs. Derevyanchenko just didn’t bring as much to the table.
“I will confirm that we did not reach a deal by the IBF deadline,” said Derevyanchenko’s promoter Lou DiBella to ESPN.com about the negotiations with Golden Boy for the Canelo fight.
Golovkin expected to battle Derevyanchenko for vacant IBF belt
DiBella can’t be too happy about this, because his fighter Derevyanchenko would have gotten a nice payday against Canelo, and received massive attention. It’s being reported that former IBF/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin has agreed to fight Derevyanchenko for the vacant IBF belt, provided his promoter can negotiate the fight. Fighting GGG for the IBF strap won’t exactly be a picnic for Derevyanchenko, because he basically a better all around fighter.
Golovkin and Derevyanchenko are being talked about fighting on October 5 at Madison Square Garden in New York. It’s a good fight possibly. Derevyanchenko already lost to Golovkin and Canelo victim Daniel Jacobs, and he had a hard time beating Jack Culcay last April. Derevyanchenko’s best career win was a 12th round knockout over Tureano Johnson in 2017. That was a grueling fight for Derevyanchenko. He took a lot of heavy punishment from Johnson before coming on in the 12th round to stop him.
“As of today, August 1, 2019, the IBF has been advised that there is no such deal,” said IBF president Daryl Peoples to ESPN.com in talking about a Canelo-Derevyanchenko negotiations.
Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy attempted to get an exception from the IBF that would have allowed Alvarez to delay his mandatory defense of his IBF title in order to face WBO middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade. This would have been allowed if Golden Boy had asked for the exemption earlier. They didn’t apply for it early enough for the IBF to grant their request.
Canelo watching his middleweight titles disappear
In the last month, Canelo (52-1-2, 35 KOs) has watched his three middleweight titles disappear, starting with his WBC belt, which as taken from by the World Boxing Council recently. The WBC decided to appoint Canelo as their newly created WBC Franchise middleweight champion. The new title designation for Canelo sounded good initially until it was learned that the Franchise title couldn’t be lost. It was just an honorary strap the WBC gave Canelo for his years of being a great fighter.
In some respects it was a demotion for Canelo, because he lost his prestigious WBC middleweight title, which sanctioning body gave to interim champion Jermall Charlo, who had been waiting for his mandatory title shot for two years since 2017. With his IBF and WBC titles now both gone, Canelo is left with only his WBA middleweight strap. Having one world title is better than none obviously, but it’s a a huge disappointment for Canelo, because he had hopes of unifying the 160 pound division. Now if he still wants to do that, Canelo will need to beat these fighters:
- Jermall Charlo: WBC champ
- Demetrius Andrade: WBO belt holder
- Sergey Derevyanchenko vs. Gennady Golovkin winner: IBF title
It’s now looking unlikely that Canelo will jump through all these hoops to try and unify the middleweight division, beause he would need to be some very solid fighters for him to win those belts. Canelo doesn’t just want to unify the 160 pound division.
Kovalev and Callum Smith are interesting options for Canelo`s boxing schedule if he doesn’t want to unify 160 pound division
Canelo wants to fight WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev. Canelo also holds the WBA super middleweight title, and there are some intriguing fights in that weight class. It might not be worth it any longer for Canelo to invest time in unifying the middleweight division. Callum Smith holds the WBA Super World 168 pound title. That’s an interesting fight for Canelo if he wants to take on the best fighter in the super middleweight division.
It would involve him likely needing to fight GGG a third time, and taking on a Premier Boxing Champions fighter in Charlo. Just fighting the slick southpaw Andrade would be a difficult obstacle for Canelo. Andrade is like a taller, younger version of Erislandy Lara. Canelo had a lot of problems beating Lara by a 12 round split decision in 2014. A lot of boxing fans felt that Lara deserved the decision. The 6’1″ Andrade’s safety first style of fighting will make it hard for him to win a decision against Canelo, but he can still make it difficult for him with his size.