Golovkin’s promoter prioritizing Canelo fight

Boxingnews24.com

By Dan Ambrose: Gennady “GGG” Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler is making Saul Canelo Avlarez the top priority in in trying to put together a big fight with him for September over another fight with WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders. What could happen though is Loeffler could up with no fight at all if Golden Boy Promotions decides they’re really ready to put their golden goose Canelo in with Golovkin yet.

It would be another Charlie Brown situation where the football is pulled away from Golovkin just when he tries to kick it. Golovkin wound up with nothing last year when he attempted to get a fight against Canelo, and we may see the same thing this year. Saunders (24-0, 12 KOs) doesn’t like being strung along, which is why he’s already talking about moving on. It would be wise for Loeffler to not put all of his faith in getting a fight against Canelo, because that fight has proven to be an elusive one in the past. Besides that, there’s a chance that Canelo could lose to Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on May 6.

Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez already has said that Tureano Johnson is the backup if they fail to get the opponent that they want for June. I think the boxing public wouldn’t mind seeing Golovkin fight a rematch with Daniel Jacobs if he can’t get a fight against Canelo or Saunders next.

“If we can keep Gennady active and make the fight with Canelo, it would be great,” said Loeffler to Fighthub.com. It would be the top priority. If not, then we’ll see whoever else will get in the ring with him. Billy Joe Saunders, we tried to make that fight last year. We couldn’t make the fight last year. If we could make it this year, it would be something. It’s always been Gennady’s dream to unify the middleweight division. It seems like now he’s fighting at the point where the other champions will fight him, whereas before when you mentioned Gennady’s names to one of the champions, they would run for the hills. It makes my job easier. Until we know what happens in May, even if we make a deal with Golden Boy, if Canelo loses, then the fights out the window,” said Loeffler.

Saunders should be the fight that Loeffler is setting up right now. If Canelo’s promoters decide they want to get him under contract right now for a fight against Golovkin in September, then so be it. I just don’t think they will. If they do get Canelo to sign for the fight with Triple G, it wouldn’t be surprising if they give him an opt out agreement if something takes place in his next fight with Chavez Jr. or even if he just doesn’t feel like going through with the fight. In other words, it would be a contract that would allow Canelo to back out for any reason.

It wouldn’t necessarily be a contract written with invisible ink, but I think it would amount to be the same thing. That’s why it might be better for Loeffler to make the fight with Saunders right now for Golovkin for June 10 in Kazakhstan. If Canelo and Golden Boy are still interested in making a fight after that in September, then they should go ahead and try and make the fight. Loeffler should have a built in time limit that he puts into the negotiations for the Canelo fight so that he doesn’t end up using too much time. Golovkin missed out on his December fight last year due to Loeffler spending too much time negotiating the fight with Jacobs.

“It would be Canelo’s biggest payday and Triple G’s biggest payday,” said Loeffler about a fight between Canelo and Golovkin. “Instead of talking about it, it makes sense to try and close the deal with Eric [Gomez of Golden Boy Promotions]. If we can do that, then make plans to stage the fight. Again, if Canelo doesn’t win on May 6th, that puts those plans out the window. So we’ve got to see what happens with him, and see if there’s a possibility to make a Billy Joe Saunders fight and then we can go from there. We’ve said we can’t really wait for people. We can’t put Gennady’s career on hold to see what happens with Canelo, otherwise he wouldn’t have fought as often as he did. We did that last year and Gennady wound up fighting only 2 times when we were waiting to see what would happen with the WBC situation,” said Loeffler.

Loeffler seems to know the drawbacks of him choosing to skip the Saunders fight, and yet he still seems to be on the verge of not taking that fight. Loeffler should let Golovkin take the fight that has the best chance of taking place, and I believe that to be the Saunders fight. If Golovkin can beat Saunders and take the last middleweight title in the division to add to his collection, then he can worry about trying to get a fight against Canelo.

Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions doesn’t want Golovkin to fight Saunders next in June. De La Hoya says that it could mess up the Canelo-Golovkin because of the risk of injury that Golovkin would be taking. You have to ask whether De La Hoya wants Golovkin to not take the fight with Saunders for another reason that he’s not saying. Is De La Hoya hoping that Canelo can get to the WBO title first ahead of Golovkin? Just think about it.

If Loeffler wastes time trying to get a fight with Canelo, and fails to do so, Golden Boy could turn around and make the fight with Saunders. We’re already hearing that Saunders is moving on, and is not going to wait 2 more weeks for Loeffler to work a deal with Canelo. Why would he wait? It’s pretty obvious that the end result of the negotiations between Loeffler and Golden Boy is for a fight between Canelo and Glovkin in September. And that likely means no Saunders fight.

Loeffler is going to take a great deal of heat from boxing fans if he fails to setup the Canelo fight for September, and if he doesn’t get the Saunders fight either. The boxing public will think Loeffler fumbled away Golovkin’s chances for a big fight. Loeffler is already tipping his hand in who he wants Golovkin to fight next With Loeffler saying that Canelo is the priority for him, it means he’s relegating Saunders as the Plan-B backup for Triple G. I don’t think Saunders is going to let himself be turned into the back-up plan, because it would involve him having to wait around for possibly nothing if he doesn’t get the fight with Golovkin.