Eric Gomez to meet with Canelo this week to discuss GGG rematch

Boxingnews24.com

By Sean Jones: Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez says he’ll be sitting down with Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) this week to discuss the rematch with middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) for May 5. Gomez says “we’re close” to getting the fight with GGG agreed upon.

Gomez stated that once the Canelo vs. Golovkin negotiations are completed, they’ll discuss the venue for the fight. Currently, the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas and Madison Square Garden are both in play for the Canelo vs. Golovkin 2 rematch. The fight will take place in the first quarter of 2018 on Cinco de Mayo weekend on May 5.

“He just got back. We’re supposed to meet next week,” said Eric Gomez to Fighthub about Canelo Alvarez. “We’re going to sit down. We’re going to go over [Golovkin rematch details]. We’re close [to getting it done]. The Dallas Cowboys, the Garden, they want to make a good offer. Once we get the fight done, then we’ll start looking at venues. It’s no different than the first fight,” said Gomez.

It’s good news that Gomez is exploring the idea of staging the Canelo-Golovkin 2 fight in New York and Texas rather than staying firm on Las Vegas, Nevada. Golovkin and his promoter Tom Loeffler have made it clear that they prefer NOT to go back to Las Vegas after their bad experience that city for their fight against Canelo on September 16. The judges scored the Canelo vs. Gennady fight a 12 round draw, which shocked a lot of boxing fans. It looked like a clear win for Golovkin. There was a great deal of unhappy people with the results of the first fight, especially with the scoring from 2 of the judges. One judge had Canelo winning 10 rounds to 2. The scoring was unbelievable. Another judge had it a draw. That judge gave Canelo round 7. That was easily Golovkin’s best round of the fight. Even the judge that scored it 10 rounds to 2 in Canelo’s favor had Golovkin winning the 7th.

Golden Boy CEO Oscar De La Hoya reaffirmed last Saturday that his priority is to make the Canelo-Golovkin rematch rather than having Canelo face the winner of the Billy Joe Saunders vs. David Lemieux fight on December 16. De La Hoya says the boxing public and Canelo-GGG deserve the rematch. Obviously, it would create a huge amount of anger if De La Hoya chose to match Canelo against Lemieux on May 5 instead of Golovkin. The fans don’t want to see Canelo fighting Lemieux right now. Of course, the fans would be interested in a Canelo-Lemieux fight, but only after Canelo faces Golovkin in a rematch.

“My priority is to make the rematch,” said De La Hoya to secondsout.com in talking about the Canelo-GGG rematch. “This is the priority. I believe that not only do the fighters deserve it, the fans deserve it. I think the No.1 priority is to make is to make Canelo-Golovkin 2,” said De La Hoya.

Canelo needs to prove that he’s not the fighter that gassed out against Golovkin and was given a gift draw last September. It’s important for Canelo to shut down the criticism from the boxing public by getting back inside the ring and facing Golovkin a second time to show that he’s a better fighter than what the fans saw last September. Golovkin exposed Canelo in that fight by jabbing him, and revealing that he’s unable to fight hard for more than 1 minute of the round.

Canelo looked like a fighter with no conditioning. He was only capable of putting out effort in the first minute of each round. After the 60 second mark, Canelo’s face and upper body would turn red, as if he were oxygen starved, and he would then fight passively for the remainder of the rounds. Canelo looked like he put too much muscle weight on for the fight.

Canelo’s stamina has never been good to begin with, as he’s always been a fighter that only fights in brief spurts. But in the Golovkin fight, Canelo was useless after the first minute of each round. The 27-year-old Canelo looked tired and much older than his age. Canelo is going to have to work on his conditioning in a big way for the rematch against Golovkin to keep from getting out-boxed and dominated in the last 9 rounds like we saw last time. Boxing expert Paulie Malignaggi was one of the many who felt that Golovkin won the fight 9 rounds to 3. ESPN analyst Teddy Atlas also believed that it was an easy win for Golovkin by an 8 rounds to 4 or 9 rounds to 3 score.

“It was such a close fight, it could have gone either way,” said De La Hoya about the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight last September. “I think the fight created fireworks we haven’t seen in a long time. So, my priority is to make the fight happen. There’s obviously negotiations, but I’m going to do everything I can to make that fight happen, and I’m sure they will do the same. So, hopefully, we can see that fight happen on Cinco de Mayo next year,” said De L Hoya.

It’s not surprising that De La Hoya is saying the Canelo vs. Golovkin 1 fight was a close one. After all, De La Hoya is Canelo’s promoter. The reality is, the fight wasn’t close. It was pretty one-sided after round 3. I had Golovkin winning the last 9 rounds of the fight. Canelo fought well in the first 3 rounds, and then he gassed out and was at the mercy of Golovkin for the remainder of the fight. Boxing is a fight that involves a lot of cardio, and Canelo simply didn’t have the conditioning to fight hard for a full 12 rounds.