GGG’s promoter excited about Canelo-Golovkin tickets selling out

Boxingnews24.com

By William Mackay: The fans quickly purchased all the remaining tickets for the September 16 fight between middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and Ring Magazine 160 pound champ Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-1, 24 KOs) for the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The tickets are now completely sold out for the venue. That’s impressive, given that the fight is still 2 months away. You don’t see that too often nowadays in boxing unless you have a huge mega-fight. Canelo and Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) would have been more suited for a larger venue like the 90,000 seat AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The middleweight stars would have likely sold out the venue.

Canelo brought in 51,000 fans in his fight against Liam Smith last September at the AT&T Stadium. That shows you how well Canelo sells in Texas. However, it would put Golovkin in a difficult spot if he had to fight Canelo in Texas in front of a big pro-Canelo crowd. Canelo won a controversial decision over Austin Trout in 2013 in San Antonio, Texas. That fight was fought in front of over 30,000 boxing fans. That was before Canelo was the huge star that he is now.

For the boxing fans that weren’t able to purchase tickets to see the Canelo-Golovkin fight live at the T-Mobile Arena, they can still watch the contest on HBO pay-per-view on September 16. Further, Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya says that they will be making an announcement for different venues for the boxing fans to watch the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight on closed circuit television.

“We are grateful for the response from the fans and excited to announce all the tickets being sold out,” said GGG’s promoter Tom Loeffler.

This is just the beginning for Golovkin, as far as Loeffler is concerned. He wants to have him fight Canelo in a rematch that would make big money. If the fights aren’t too one-sided, there’s a possibility of a trilogy fight. Golovkin isn’t going to stick around the middleweight division for too much longer. If he can’t get a second fight against Canelo, then he plans on going after WBO champion Billy Joe Saunders to win the last of the middleweight titles.

Golovkin will then be leaving the 160lb division to move up to 168 to fight for the belts at super middleweight. It’ll be interesting to see which middleweights follow Golovkin. Danny Jacobs and Jermall Charlo will likely stay at middleweights to try and get a fight against Canelo. If it looks like there’s nothing for them at 160, then it’s possible that we could see Charlo and Jacobs at super middleweight before long.

If anyone should be fighting at 168, it’s Jacobs, as he was rumored to have rehydrated to 190 lbs. for his March 18 fight against Golovkin on HBO PPV. Jacobs looked huge inside the ring with Golovkin. Jacobs looked like a light heavyweight around the same size as Sergey Kovalev.

This is the fight that Loeffler has been after for the last 2 years for Golovkin. Loeffler had been trying to get Golden Boy to make the fight with Golovkin, but they were dragging their feet at the prospects of putting their cash cow Canelo in with the hard hitting Golovkin. It was only after Golovkin’s fight against Danny Jacobs that Golden Boy finally relented and let the Canelo-Golovkin fight take place. Golden Boy Promotions boss Oscar De La Hoya denies that Golovkin’s shaky performance against Jacobs had anything to do with his decision making to let Canelo fight Triple G. De La Hoya maintains that he had always planned on matching Canelo against Golovkin in September 2017.

Golovkin, 35, will be defending his IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight titles in the Canelo fight. For his part, the 27-year-old Canelo will have his Ring Magazine middleweight title on the line. The winner of the Canelo-Golovkin fight will have all he titles at middleweight except for the World Boxing Organization strap, which is held by Billy Joe Saunders. He’ll be defending his WBO belt on the same night as the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight in facing former world title challenger Willie Monroe Jr. on September 16 at the Copper Box Arena in London, England. Monroe Jr. has sparred with Canelo in the past, and he fought Golovkin in 2015.

“When you put two of the best boxers in the sport and two of the best ticket sellers together, this is the result you get,” said Loeffler.

Selling tickets is one thing. The real question is whether Canelo and Golovkin can sell pay-per-view buys in their fight on September 16. There could be a certain amount of PPV attrition with the boxing public; many of which will be purchasing the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor fight that comes earlier than the GGG-Canelo fight on August 26. That fight could sell for $100 on PPV.

The boxing public recently saw Canelo fight Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on HBO PPV on May 6. Before that, there was Golovkin vs. Jacobs on HBO PPV on March 18. The PPV fights in the sport are coming at a rate of every other month. That’s a lot of high cable bills for boxing fans. The buys for Canelo and Golovkin could be hurt by the Mayweather-McGregor fight coming before it.

We can’t know for sure how badly that fight will impact the PPV sales for the Golovkin-Canelo fight, but you can bet it’s going to take a healthy chunk out of the sales for hat fight. It’s too bad, considering that Canelo-GGG is such a great fight. The fans haven’t seen a middleweight contest this good in many years.

You can probably go back as far as 2004 for the Oscar De La Hoya vs. Bernard Hopkins fight to find a match at middleweight that is as good as the Canelo vs. GGG fight. That was a long time ago in boxing. It’s good that the fans are finally able to see such a great fight between two of the best talents in the 160 lb. division. It’s sad news that the PPV sales for the Canelo and Golovkin fight could be negatively impacted by the Mayweather vs. McGregor event.