By Robert Segal: Promoter Eddie Hearn believes the trilogy match between 40-year-old Gennadiy Golovkin and the recently beaten Canelo Alvarez is a bigger fight than the welterweight undisputed match between Errol Spence Jr when it comes to casual boxing fans.
Hearn says Canelo-Golovkin 3 is a far bigger match than Spence-Crawford in terms of commercial revenue, pay-per-view, viewership, closed circuit, and closed circuit.
It’s difficult for the hardcore boxing fans to wrap their heads around the idea of the September 17th trilogy match between Canelo (57-2-2, 39 KOs) and Golovkin (42-1-1, 37 KOs) attracting more interest than the match-up between undefeated welterweight champions Spence and Crawford.
Golovkin has hurt his popularity by fighting so seldom since his 12-round majority decision loss to Canelo in 2018.
In the four years since, Golovkin has fought just four times, looking poor in two of them against Sergiy Derevyanchenko and Ryota Murata. As a result, the popularity that Golovkin once had has deteriorated with his inactivity, and many fans see him as only interested in the cash-out fight against Canelo.
As for Canelo, he’s coming off a one-sided loss to Dmitry Bivol on May 7th, and he’s looking less than courageous by choosing not to try and avenge the loss.
Canelo had told the fans after his loss that he would fight Bivol in a rematch, but instead, he’s chosen to fight 40-year-old Golovkin, which makes him look weak in their eyes.
“Canelo vs GGG by an absolute mile, and by the way, Spence- Crawford is a great fight, a great fight for boxing, but anyone with a brain knows the answer to that question,” said Eddie Hearn to iFL TV when asked which is the bigger fight between a trilogy match between Canelo & Golovkin and the undisputed welterweight clash between champions Errol Spence Jr & Terence Crawford.
“It depends on how hardcore they were,” said Hearn when asked if fans would put a Canelo-GGG fight ahead of wanting to see a Spence-Crawford fight.
“I think if you’re a super hardcore fans, you’ve been waiting for Spence – Crawford for a long time. But if you want to talk about media attention, if you want to talk about the gate, if you want to take about pay-per-view numbers, viewership, global reach, commercial revenue, closed-circuit, it’s not even close.
“But I think if you’re a super hardcore fan, you’ve been waiting for Spence vs. Crawford for a long time. So you may choose that over Canelo – GGG if you’re a super hardcore fan, but the casual fan, if you like, are the ones that are going to generate the numbers.
“If you talk about the revenue generated on a fight, it’s like, God knows, it’s like ten times as big [for Canelo vs. Gennadiy over Spence vs. Crawford], but Spence-Crawford is a brilliant fight and I think it’s right up there with Canelo-GGG, of course,” said Hearn.
