De La Hoya: Golovkin’s chances for Canelo fight decreased after Jacobs match

By Boxing News - 03/21/2017 - Comments

Image: De La Hoya: Golovkin’s chances for Canelo fight decreased after Jacobs match

By Allan Fox: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya says middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) didn’t help his chances of making the fight his top guy Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs) after his narrow 12 round unanimous decision win over Daniel Jacobs (32-2, 29 KOs) last Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in New York. De La Hoya still wants to make the Canelo-Golovkin fight but he feels that Golovkin’s promoters at K2 will need to give in to Canelo in the negotiations for the fight to get made. De La Hoya says that Canelo is the proven A-side in the negotiations. The Canelo-Golovkin negotiations will be resuming this week for their proposed fight in September on HBO PPV.

Golovkin beat Jacobs by the scores 115-112, 115-112, 114-113. Jacobs landed more power shots, and fought better in the second half of the fight than Golovkin in De La Hoya’s opinion. De La Hoya says that Jacobs gave Golovkin too much respect in the first half of the fight, according to the LA Times. He thought Jacobs was much more effective in the second half of the contest than he was in the first.

The bad news for Golovkin is he’s probably going to have a much tougher time getting the money split that he wanted to from Golden Boy Promotions for the Canelo fight. The narrow win by Golovkin over Jacobs gave De La Hoya and Golden Boy the excuse they needed to not budge on the current offer that they’ve put on the table for him. That’s why it was probably a big mistake by Golovkin to not shoot for the knockout of Jacobs.

Golovkin chose to box Jacobs rather than firing a lot of power shots and pressuring him the way he’d done his other opponents. It’s too late now. Golovkin could give Jacobs an immediate rematch to see if he can improve on his performance, but K2 Promotions are not likely to do that. They want Golovkin to face WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders in June to go after his title. If Golovkin wins that fight, they want to get the Canelo fight in September.

“I actually believe [the percentages of making the fight] decrease. It all depends on the negotiations – and we’ll continue talks – but now obviously we clearly know who the ‘A’ side is and that’s obviously Canelo. So I’m going to instruct my president, Eric Gomez, to continue talks and, hopefully, it can get done,” said De La Hoya to the latimes.com.

This doesn’t sound good for Golovkin. It might not a good idea for his promoters to continue with the negotiations with Golden Boy right now. They should probably wait until the smoke clears from Canelo’s fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and see whether that helps their bargaining position. If not, then Golovkin should consider kicking the fight with Canelo into 2018. Golovkin needs to put together some impressive wins against Billy Joe Saunders and then Jacobs in a second fight.

Golden Boy could lose their bargaining advantage over Golovkin if Canelo loses or struggles badly in his next fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on May 6 on HBO PPV. If Canelo gets beaten or he has a tough time winning that fight, then it’s going to take away Golden Boy’s advantage in the negotiations with Golovkin. What we don’t know is how serious Golden Boy is about making the Canelo-Golovkin fight. If they’re really serious about wanting to make the fight with him yet, then they probably won’t budge in the negotiations even if Canelo loses to Chavez Jr. After all, it probably helps Canelo to drag out the Golovkin fight far as many years as possible in order to keep his pay-per-view numbers relatively high.

They haven’t been high lately with Canelo bringing in just 300,000 buys on HBO PPV for his fight against Liam Smith last September. Before that, Canelo brought in 600,000 buys against Amir Khan last May, and 900,000 for his fight against Miguel Cotto in November 2015. The numbers are dropping for Canelo. However, he’s facing Chavez Jr. on May 6, and that’s a fight that will likely bring his PPV numbers back up. Just how much is unclear.

The Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight has some boxing interested, but there are a lot that see the fight as a money grab in which he’s facing a guy past his prime. It’s another Canelo vs. James Kirkland and Alfredo Angulo type of fight. Golden Boy has been matching Canelo against a lot of fighters that were once good fighters, but who are now no longer at the top. Angulo, Kirkland and Khan were good but not great fighters. By the time they fought Canelo, they had clearly slipped and were on the downsides of their careers. Chavez Jr. fits in with those three fighters in the fact that he’s seen better days with his career.

“Not that [Golovkin’s value] went down,” De La Hoya said. “I just feel that given today’s market, I really feel that GGG’s side has to be more than fair to make this fight,”

De La Hoya’s comments suggest that Golovkin and his promoter Tom Loeffler are going to need to give up on the idea of getting a better percentage of the revenue. De La Hoya sounds like he’s going to use Golovkin’s performance against Jacobs as a reason to make sure Canelo gets the lion’s share of the revenue. Loeffler has said that he wants a deal that is fair to Golovkin, given that he’s going to be helping in attracting boxing fans to purchase the fight.

You can understand where Loeffler is coming from. If Golovkin is unable to share fairly in the huge revenue that he helps generate, then there’s no real point in taking the fight with Canelo until he’s given the share that he feels is a fair one. Golovkin can move on and fight other guys until Canelo and Golden Boy change their minds. If the fight with Canelo can’t get made in September, then Golovkin has other good options. He can face Jacobs in a rematch to improve on his previous performance. The rematch between Golovkin and Jacobs will likely be on HBO PPV once again.

Loeffler has also talked about wanting to match Golovkin against WBO super middleweight champion Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez. That might be a better fight for Golovkin than facing Jacobs again this year, because Ramirez might help pump up the PPV numbers. It would be a similar fight as Jacobs though as far as Golovkin dealing with a guy that moves constantly. Golovkin would need to chase Ramirez down to land his power shots. Ramirez is a very tall fighter at 6’2”, and Golovkin will have to be better at pressuring him than he was against Jacobs.

De La Hoya says Canelo won’t respect Golovkin when the two of them face each other in the future. De La Hoya is probably right. Canelo can’t move around the ring like Jacobs, so he’s got no choice but to stand and fight him in his usual brawling manner. That will play into Golovkin’s hands for sure. If the Canelo-Golovkin fight gets made this year, it’s going to be hard for Canelo to win, because he’s there to be hit with body and head shots by Golovkin. If Golden Boy chooses to push the fight into the future, then it helps Canelo’s chances if Golovkin ages more. Right now, you’d have to favor Golovkin by knockout.