Canelo vs. Golovkin II deal reached for rematch

By Jim Dower: Gennady Golovkin wanted a 50-50 deal for his rematch with Saul Canelo Alvarez, but he reportedly didn’t get what he wanted for their September 15 rematch in Las Vegas, Nevada. Golden Boy Promotions were able to deal him down to an undisclosed percentage for the fight.

According to Dan Rafael, the executives at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas helped come up with a solution to get the Canelo-GGG 2 rematch done. There was a noon deadline given by Golden Boy Promotions to attempt to pressure Golovkin to agree to the 42.5% purse that they wanted him to agree to. Golovkin asked for 45%, but according to Lance Pugmire at the latimes.com, he got “less than he wanted – and a little more than Alvarez wanted to give.”

Just how much less than 45% Golovkin agreed to is unknown. But with the MGM Grand helped come up with a solution to get the Canelo vs. Golovkin II fight over the finish line, it’s possible they came up with a tweak with the ticket prices. That’s what some boxing fans believe. That solution would help both fighters though, so it’s hard to see that are a deal where it helped make the fight fairer. Raising the ticket prices won’t bring the percentage split between them closer unless Canelo gets slightly less of the gate.

“I’m happy to inform that we have a fight September 15!!!! #CaneloGGG2,” Oscar De La Hoya said on his Twitter.

“He came back with a solution that satisfied both sides,” Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler said to the latimes.com about Golden Boy president Eric Gomez. “Purse percentage was a main factor.”

Golovkin is expected to make $40 million for the rematch with Canelo. In their fight last year in September, Canelo was given 65 percent of the revenue for the fight, leaving GGG with only 35 percent despite the fact that he was the IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion. GGG was given a bad deal not only with the purse split for the fight, but also with the judging of the fight, which saw them score it a 12 round draw. It’s widely believed that Golovkin deserved the win. The fight generated 1.3 million pay-per-view buys.

Golovkin was prepared to fight WBO middleweight title holder Billy Joe Saunders if the fight with Canelo fell through. The Saunders fight would have made sense when Golovkin was collecting titles, but he recently lost his IBF title by choosing not to defend it against Sergiy Derevyanchenko.

[Golovkin] “Stuck to his principles,” Loeffler said. ”It wasn’t about money. We had the deal lined up with Saunders to unify the titles in the fall. Luckily, Golden Boy and Canelo accepted that.”

It would be interesting to know what the deal is that Canelo accepted, but we’re not going to know what the deal is unless it’s leaked by one of the two promotional companies. De La Hoya chose not to speak about the terms of the agreement. Golovkin agreeing to fight Canelo at the T-Mobile Arena once again suggests that there was more money for him in taking the fight there than if he had insisted on going to a neutral venue like in New York at Madison Square Garden or in Texas. The good news is the judges won’t be the same crew as last time the two fought each other on September 16 at the T-Mobile Arena last year. One of the judges that worked that fight gave Golovkin only two rounds for the entire 12 round contest. Another judge gave Canelo round 7, which was the best round of the fight for Golovkin. The way

those judges saw the fight was different from how many of the boxing fans viewed it. They felt that Golovkin had done more than enough to deserve the victory.

GGG and Canelo were to fight on May 5 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, but Alvarez tested positive twice for clenbuterol and was promptly suspended for six months by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Canelo’s suspension expires on August 17 in time for the rematch with GGG to take place on September 15. What we don’t know is whether Canelo’s surgically repaired right knee will hold up during training camp. If so, then there shouldn’t be any problems, but you never know.

Golovkin defeated Vanes Martirosyan by a 2nd round knockout on May 5 in using him as a replacement opponent. The money that GGG received for the fight was only $1 million. Golovkin still wanted to fight on that date because he had been forced to skip fighting in December because Golden Boy wanted him to wait until the rematch with Canelo on May 5. Little did Golovkin know that Canelo would test positive twice for clenbuterol and wind up dropping out of the rematch. A lot has been made about Golovkin losing out on a $20 million payday for the May 5 rematch with Canelo, but he also lost out on not being able to fight last December. Even if Golovkin only got $1 million for December as well, that’s money that he couldn’t get because he had to wait for a rematch that never took place on May 5 against Canelo.

Loeffler believes the second fight will be a bigger promotion than the first between Canelo and Golovkin. I’m not sure if it will or not. A lot of boxing fans now say that Canelo is a drug cheat, and they don’t want to pay to see him fight because that would be empowering him. It’s possible that the Golovkin vs. Canelo fight will do fewer PPV buys than the first one just like the second Andre Ward vs. Sergey Kovalev fight did fewer PPV buys. It’s believed that many boxing fans were turned off after seeing Ward win a controversial decision over Kovalev in the first fight, so the fans stayed away from purchasing the second fight because they didn’t trust that the decision would be a fair one. If the fans do the same thing with the Canelo-GGG 2 fight, then they may choose not to purchase the rematch on HBO PPV because they don’t feel that Golovkin has a chance of winning a decision due to the venue being in Canelo’s favor.

These are the things that might make it VERY difficult for Golovkin to earn a decision against Canelo:

– Venue favors Canelo due to the fight being in Las Vegas

– Rematch taking place on Mexican holiday, which means many of the boxing fans will coming to see Canelo rather than GGG

– The 36-year-old Golovkin is now One year older for having to wait an entire year for the rematch

Golovkin will take more chances to try for a knockout if he believes he can’t win a decision. If Golovkin believed that the judges would be fair, he would box Canelo and use his reach and height advantage. I don’t think Golovkin believes the judges will give him a fair shake, so he’ll try for a knockout.

Golovkin is going to make so much money fighting Canelo a second time; it probably won’t matter if he loses the rematch. It won’t be good for boxing obviously if there’s another controversial decision like last time though.

”He wanted the respect as the champion, especially with what happened with the May 5 cancellation,” Loeffler said to ESPN.com. ”We figured out a way to get it done after the fight was dead. Gennady is satisfied with the deal. We needed one of our partners to get involved and the MGM did. That’s how the deal was saved. We came up with a solution,” Loeffler said.