De La Hoya in no hurry to start Canelo-Golovkin negotiations

Boxingnews24.com

By Sean Jones: Oscar De La Hoya says there’s no hurry to start the negotiations between Golden Boy Promotions’ star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin until after the following fights take place:

• David Lemieux vs. Billy Joe Saunders on December 16

• Miguel Cotto vs. Sadam Ali on December 2

• Danny Jacobs vs. Luis Arias on November 11

After those 3 fights conclude, De La Hoya and his fellow employees at Golden Boy Promotions will make a determination to decide whether Canelo faces one of the winners of those 3 fights or if he fights Golovkin in a rematch.

Lemieux can give Golden Boy more bargaining room to get a better deal with Golovkin in the rematch. With Golden Boy dangling Lemieux over the heads of Golovkin and his promoter Tom Loeffler, they can basically tell them that they need to accept the terms offered to them or else Canelo will go in another direction by taking the fight against the Canadian. Having Lemieux there strengthens Golden Boy’s hand in the Canelo-Golovkin negotiations. There’s no doubt about that.

Golovkin doesn’t have the same options. The only 3 choices Golovkin has is fights against Ryota Murata, Jermall Charlo and Danny Jacobs. Those are big names, and none of them are PPV worthy opponents. Lemieux isn’t either if he were fighting Golovkin. But with Canelo, he can fight Lemieux on HBO PPV and his boxing fans will be ecstatic about that fight, considering it’s a winnable fight for him.

Lemieux, 28, is one of Golden Boy’s fighters in their stable, so it’s quite understandable why De La Hoya wants to wait on the outcome of his fight with WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders before he considers whether to make the Canelo vs. GGG rematch or not. Lemieux would be a good payday for Canelo in early 2018 on Cinco de Mayo on May 5 in Las Vegas, Nevada. It’s a fight that Canelo has a much better chance of winning than if he faces Golovkin again.

Canelo was clearly outworked and dominated by Golovkin. The judges gave Canelo a 12 round draw, but boxing public saw the results as a gift to the popular redheaded Mexican fighter. Canelo appeared to lose by a fairly wide margin of 9 rounds to 3. Golovkin has made it clear that he’s not going to play around with Canelo in the rematch by letting the fight go to the scorecards again. Golovkin no longer wants “decision fight.” He’s only thinking knockout of Canelo so that he doesn’t have the judges take away another win from him.

”We still need Miguel Cotto, David Lemieux-Billy Joe Saunders,” said De La Hoya to ESPN Deportes in talking about fights he wants to wait to conclude before he decides whether to start negotiations for a fight between Canelo and Golovkin. ”We have to wait, they will fight Lemieux-Saunders, good fight that I will see in Canada, Daniel Jacobs (against Luis Arias) will fight at 160 pounds, I want to see what is going to happen…January maybe we can start talking about that fight, but from 0 to 100, Golden Boy wants that fight, we have to reach an agreement,” said De La Hoya.

While De La Hoya mentions Jacobs as being in the running for Canelo’s next fight in 6 months from now on May 5, I think it’s very unlikely Golden Boy would be willing to use him as an opponent for their flagship Mexican star. Jacobs, 6’0”, is simply too big for Canelo, and his habit of using movement will likely hurt his ability to ever get a fight against Canelo unless he can become a big star in the future by beating GGG in a rematch. Golovkin is the one that will end up fighting Jacobs again. If Golovkin beats Jacobs, then that pretty much will end his hopes of ever fighting Canelo.

Outside of Golovkin, the only 2 fighters with any real chance of fighting Canelo in May is Cotto and Lemieux. In the case of Cotto, he’s got an easy mismatch against fringe welterweight contender Sadam Ali on December 2 on HBO World Championship Boxing. This is supposed to be Cotto’s final fight of his career before he retires, but that’s unlikely to happen. If Golden Boy offers Cotto a huge money rematch against Canelo on HBO pay-per-view on Cinco de Mayo, then he will surely accept that fight.

My guess is Cotto is the first option for Canelo in May. If Cotto doesn’t accept the fight, then Golden Boy will likely offer it to Lemieux if he gets past Saunders. If Lemieux is unable or not qualified to fight Canelo, then Golovkin will be the third choice. I see Golovkin only getting the Canelo rematch until after the red-haired star has faced Cotto and Lemieux. As I mentioned already, Jacobs has virtually no chance of getting a fight against Canelo in this lifetime. I think the same applies to Jermall Charlo. Those guys are too big, too fast and too powerful for the short 5’8” Canelo for Golden Boy to risk making either of those fights.

People want to see the tiebreaker with Golovkin, with Jacobs, if he wins impressive Lemieux, that depends a lot,” said De La Hoya. “We will wait after Lemieux-Saunders, we will talk, analyze, these negotiations take time and are not easy, after that fight we will think about it, join them as a team,” said De La Hoya.

Golden Boy will very likely make the Canelo-Lemiux fight on Cinco de Mayo on May 5 if Lemieux looks good in beating Saunders. It’s a PPV worthy fight for Canelo fighting Lemieux. Golovkin doesn’t have the same options. Golovkin can fight arguably more talented fighters than Lemieux in Jermall Charlo or Jacobs, but those fights won’t be PPV worthy contests, being that he’s not a PPV attraction and neither are those 2.

If Canelo beats Lemieux to win the WBO middleweight title, Golden Boy can make a fuss about their Mexican star being a champion again, even if he’s little than a paper champion and not the true champion. One gets the sense that Golden Boy isn’t too confident about Canelo’s chances of beating Golovkin in the rematch. The big wigs at Golden Boy obviously saw what a lot of boxing fans saw in watching the Canelo-Golovkin fight in that Canelo was too short to get to Golovkin.

The only thing Canelo could do is try and counter Golovkin when he would throw power shots. That was the only Canelo could land anything in the fight. When Golovkin was on the outside jabbing and using his longer reach, Canelo was helpless due to his lack of arm reach. The fact that the judges gave Canelo a draw in the fight was seen by a lot of boxing fans as a robbery in Las Vegas. Canelo will look bad if his rematch with Golovkin ends up with him avoiding another loss due to questionable scoring from the judges. Golovkin seems to have Canelo’s number. The rematch won’t be any different.

Golovkin isn’t going to shrink in height all of a sudden in the next 6 months to enable Canelo to use his short reach to land punches. At the same time, Canelo’s poor stamina likely won’t improve in the rematch. Canelo was only capable of fighting hard for the first 45 seconds of each round in the Golovkin fight on September 16. Canelo’s inability to fight 3 hard minutes of each round will cause him to struggle just like last time. The judges won’t be the same in the Canelo vs. Golovkin rematch. The pair that scored the Canelo-GGG fight 118-110 for Canelo and 114-114 won’t be working the Canelo vs. Golovkin rematch. It’s going to be different judges next time. That’s bad news for Canelo, because those 2 judges, Adelaide Byrd and Don Trella gave him a lot of rounds in which he appeared to lose in the minds of a lot of boxing fans.