Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin is ON for Sept.15

Boxingnews24.com

By Sean Jones

Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions has announced the news that the rematch between Saul Canelo Alvarez and Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin is ON for September 15. After the 24 hour deadline came and went today without Golovkin agreeing to the 57½-42½ Golden Boy was offering to him, it was believed that the rematch was dead in the water. However, Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler continued to work with Golden Boy and finally he was able to get the deal done for September 15 at a still to be determined venue.

There’s still no word what the agreed upon purse split for the fight is. Golovkin wanted a 55-45 split, while Golden Boy were standing firm in offering him 42 ½ percent split. Golovkin wanted a better deal after Canelo testing positive twice for clenbuterol, and dropping out of the rematch that was set for May 5th. If Golovkin was able to get a 55-45 split, it shows his resolve in sticking to his guns to get the best deal possible instead of agreeing to take far less than Canelo like he did in their previous fight last September. Golovkin was given just a 30 percent split for that fight to Canelo’s 70 percent.

De La Hoya said this on his Twitter about the news of the Canelo vs. Golovkin 2 fight being done:

”I’m happy to inform that we have a fight September 15th!!! #CaneloGGG2.”

Lance Pugmire of the LA Times had this to say on his Twitter just movements ago:

”Oscar De La Hoya has stated the Canelo v GGG rematch is ON!!! They have agreed to a deal for September 15th and WE HAVE A FIGHT!!!!”

Golovkin and Loeffler’s next hurdle in the negotiations is to make sure the rematch with Canelo doesn’t take place back in Las Vegas again, because that’s where he GGG was arguably robbed last September. Golovkin wants the rematch to take place in New York, which would make it more of a neutral venue. If Golden Boy is able to get Golovkin to agree to having the second fight take place in Las Vegas, it might mean that GGG will need to knockout Canelo in order to have a chance of winning. Fighting Canelo and the judges means that GGG will need to be looking for a KO from start to finish so that he doesn’t wind up with another draw or worse.

READ Canelo vs. Golovkin II deal reached for rematch

Earlier today, De La Hoya had said this to ESPN.com:

”We’ve been trying to make the numbers work, and Canelo finally said, ‘Screw this guy.’ We’ve come off our 35 percent. We’ve come off our contract that we had signed a couple of months ago and we still moved our percentage to make Golovkin happy but clearly he doesn’t want the fight. Tom and Eric [Gomden] have been on the phone until right now, and Eric just told me we have no deal. 100 percent there is no fight. We’ve come up on our offer, and there’s no budge from him, so there’s no fight. That’s it. There’s no fight. We’re moving on. We have deadlines.”

It’s doubtful that De La Hoya and Eric Gomez were ever serious about wanting to move on with Canelo, because that would have meant making far less money than they would with the Golovkin fight. Moreover, there would have been a high probability that Canelo would lose even worse than he did last September.