De La Hoya tells “scared” GGG to sign contract for Canelo rematch

Boxingnews24.com

By Dan Ambrose

Oscar De La Hoya has called on “scared” Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin to sign the contract for the September rematch with Golden Boy Promotions star Saul Canelo Alvarez. De La Hoya says Canelo can make $40 million fighting other guys, whereas Golovkin makes just $3 million.

One of the concessions Golovkin wants from Golden Boy Promotions is for Canelo to begin drug testing. Golovkin is probably not going to sign the contract for the rematch until Canelo starts being tested. The Kazakhstan fighter might win even more fans if he stands on his principals and refuses to fight Canelo if he chooses not to start a random drug testing program.

Golovkin, 36, said recently that he gives the rematch with Canelo only a 10% chance of taking place in September. Triple G then said that Canelo needs to start testing for PEDs. GGG and his team are waiting for Canelo to sign up for random drug testing, which has not happened for some reason.

According to Yahoo Sports News, Canelo won’t begin drug testing until he signs the contract for the rematch with Golovkin. Given how long the two previous negotiations between Canelo and Golovkin took, it could take many weeks or even months for the fight to get made. If Canelo is not being tested during all those months, then Golovkin could be at a disadvantage in the rematch with him if he were to have used performance enhancing drugs before the testing begins. Golovkin wants to be certain that Canelo isn’t cycling with clenbuterol before the normal drug testing by VADA starts, which is at the start of training camp.

De La Hoya said this on his Twitter last Friday night in calling for Golovkin to ink the contract for the rematch with Canelo:

”In the meantime, GGGBoxing making $3 million and Canelo making $40 million without you. #sighnthecontract #scared #CaneloGGG2 #stopcrying.”

It’s unknown what De La Hoya is talking about when he says Canelo can make $40 million fighting without GGG. As far as the middleweight division goes, GGG is the only fighter that Canelo can make huge money fighting. The other top middleweights – Ryota Murata, Billy Joe Saunders, Jermall Charlo and Daniel Jacobs – aren’t large enough attractions for Canelo to make $40 million fighting. Murata is a big star in Japan, but he’s enough of a star in the U.S for a fight between him and Canelo to bring in a lot of pay-per-view buys on HBO. Besides that, Murata is co-promoted by Top Rank, and he fights on ESPN, which means a fight between him and Canelo is extremely unlikely to happen.

De La Hoya’s fighter Canelo tested positive for clenbuterol twice last February during VADA’s testing. The drug testing for the May 5th Canelo-GGG II fight reportedly started a little earlier than usual, and unfortunately Canelo came up positive twice. Canelo immediately blamed the positive tests on having eaten beef in Mexico that contained the banned substance. The excuse didn’t matter. The Nevada State Athletic Commission still suspended Canelo for 6 months.

It’s in De La Hoya and Canelo’s best interest for Golovkin to sign the contract for the rematch soon, because the longer he drags it out, the more it makes them look bad. The essential problem that Canelo has is the lack of testing that’s being done right now.

”Canelo will return in September,” De La Hoya said.

Golovkin (38-0-1, 34 KOs) obviously isn’t afraid to sign for the rematch with the 27-year-old Canelo. Golovkin had previously signed for a rematch with Canelo on May 5, but the fight failed to happen after the Mexican star tested positive twice for the banned substance clenbuterol and then pulled out of the fight. Days later, the Nevada State Athletic Commission suspended Canelo (49-1-2, 34 KOs) on April 18 for 6 months until mid-August.

Without Canelo enrolling for random testing for drugs, it’s possible that Golovkin won’t sign the contract for a rematch with him. Golovkin appears to have real concerns about facing an untested Canelo. Sure, Canelo would be tested for drugs once training camp begins, but if he’s not tested during the months that lead up to training camp, then he would have a huge gap of unaccounted for time where there would be no way for GGG to know what he was putting into his body in terms of drugs. Clennuterol doesn’t stay in a person’s system for long. Without testing being done now, there’s no way for Golovkin to know whether Canelo is clean or not. De La Hoya had told TMZ previously that Canelo was going to be tested randomly, but that hasn’t happened yet and Golovkin doesn’t appear to want to sign the contract without the testing going on. The longer Canelo waits before starting testing the less likely the rematch between him and Golovkin will take place.

If Golovkin doesn’t Canelo next, then he’s WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders waiting for a unification fight with him. Golovkin vs. Saunders won’t make the kind of money that Canelo-GGG II will make, but it’s a fight that the Kazakhstan fighter wants. IBF/WBA/WBC champion Golovkin’s goal is to unify the middleweight division, and he just needs Saunders’ WBO 160lb title to finish unifying. If not Saunders, then Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler could look to make a fight between him and WBA ‘regular’ middleweight champion Ryota Murata. That’s a good money fight for Triple G that could take place in a large stadium in Tokyo, Japan.

If Canelo can make $40 million fighting someone else besides GGG, then Golden Boy needs to make that fight happen. I don’t think there’s anybody there for Canelo to make even half of that amount. Here are the other options for Canelo if he doesn’t fight Golovkin in September:

• Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan

• David Lemieux

• Jermall Charlo

• Daniel Jacobs

• Sergiy Derevyanchenko

• Billy Joe Saunders

• Demetrius Andrade

• Sadam Ali

• Jarrett Hurd

• Jermell Charo

• David Benavidez

The above list is as wide a net as possible that I could create for all the potential fights for Canelo for September, and I don’t see anyone in that list in which he can make $40 million fighting. Indeed, most of those guys are fighters that Canelo wouldn’t think of fighting, because there would be a lot of risk involved for him. Hurd, Benavidez, Derevyanchenko and the Charlo brothers are all risky fights for Canelo. I don’t think he would agree to any of them, especially given that he’ll be coming off of a 1-year layoff and knee surgery. It’s not easy for any fighter to come back after a year out of the ring, but it’s more of a problem when they’ve had knee surgery like Canelo recently had.

Canelo could see his PPV buys drop off in his next fight anyway because of two positive tests for clenbuterol. Canelo is now a tainted fighter in the eyes of a lot of fans because of his positive tests. A lot of boxing fans might not want to see Canelo fight if they believe he’s not a clean fighter. Canelo testing positive for a performance enhancing substance is a major turnoff to a lot of fans.

Those fans might not want to see someone who isn’t being tested for PEDs after having been popped twice. Some fans obviously will still be willing to pay to see Canelo fight, but a lot probably won’t.

Golovkin waited two years to get the fight with Canelo last September. The fight could have taken place between them in 2016, but Canelo vacated the WBC middleweight title after being ordered by the World Boxing Council to fight GGG. When the two fighters did face each other last year in September in Las Vegas, the fight was scored as a controversial 12 round draw. Most people thought Golovkin won the fight. The rematch would have helped Canelo show that he was the better fighter all along, and that he wasn’t just given a gift draw by the Nevada judges the first time around.

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