Loeffler wants Canelo-Golovkin deal done by December

Boxingnews24.com

By Dan Ambrose: Middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler said that they’ll only wait another month until December for Golden Boy Promotions and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) to negotiate the rematch with GGG. If they don’t have the rematch done by December, Loeffler says he’s going to move on and schedule a fight for Golovkin on HBO for March or April.

Loeffler says he can’t have Golovkin’s boxing career put on hold by Canelo and Golden Boy for fight that might not happen for May 5, which is when the redheaded Mexican star wants to fight again. Golden Boy CEO Oscar De La Hoya has further complicated the rematch efforts by Loeffler with his comments about wanting to wait and see what happens with December 16 fight between WBO middleweigh champion Billy Joe Saunders and David Lemieux.

De La Hoya also says he wants to see the results of the Miguel Cotto vs. Sadal Ali fight on December 2, and the November 11th fight between Danny Jacobs and Luis Arias. With De La Hoya not definitely committing Canelo to the rematch with Golovkin, it puts Loeffler in a tough position of where he can both wait and hope that Golden Boy does the rematch or he can start looking schedule an opponent for Golovkin for March or April.

“We’re trying to work on the rematch,” said Loeffler to RingTV in discussing his negotiation attempts to put together a rematch between GGG and Canelo. “I thought it would work out pretty easy and pretty quick. He feels he won the fight. If Canelo wants to be a true champion, then he knows who he needs to fight to get the titles. If the fight happens, it would be May 5th. If for some reason the fight doesn’t happen, we’ve already spoken to HBO to get a date either in March or April for Gennady,” said Loeffler.

It makes sense for Golovkin and Loeffler to move on rather than waiting until mid-December to fight out what Golden Boy’s intentions are for Canelo. December 16th is when Saunders and Lemieux fight each other in a rematch. It’s really risky on Golovkin’s part for him to wait until nearly the end of December for Canelo and Golden Boy to decide. It’s clear if they truly wanted the fight with Golovkin, they would have told him by now that they wanted the fight. If this was Floyd Mayweather Jr. rather than GGG, Canelo and Golden Boy would have him likely would have had the rematch already negotiated before the end of September. They would have been all over a rematch with Mayweather. But because it’s a guy that is dangerous to Canelo, and who doesn’t bring in as many pay-per-view buys, they’re nonchalant about the rematch. Loeffler is going to need a firm deadline for moving on, being that he could wind up missing out on one of HBO Boxing’s fight dates if he has GGG waiting too long for Canelo and Golden Boy.

” The fans want to see it again because the fans were disappointed with the decision,”said Loeffler. “Gennady clearly and we all felt clearly he won the fight. I don’t think there’s anything standing in the way. It’s just about finalizing the deal. But at the same time, you can’t force [Canelo to take the fight]. It took Canelo a long time to take the fight with Triple G. A lot of people are speculating that after going 12 rounds with Gennady, maybe he doesn’t want to fight him right away. Eric [Gomez] still believes It’ll happens in the next fight. They just haven’t yet gotten the green light from Canelo to say, ‘go ahead and let’s close this deal.’ I really think before the end of this year before December. If we can’t get a deal done within the next month, then it’s going to be clear that maybe the fight won’t happen in May,” said Loeffler.

With the way De La Hoya is sounding ambivalent about the Canelo-Golovkin rematch, it would be smart for Loeffler to start thinking about focusing on his Plan-B option for Triple G. It seems like De La Hoya is interested in matching Canelo against these fighters:

• David Lemieux

• Miguel Cotto

• Danny Jacobs

Once Canelo is done with those 3 guys, he might be interested in fighting Golovkin at that time. We’ll need to see. But in the meantime, it would be smart for Loeffler to match Golovkin against his IBF mandatory Sergiy Derevyanchenko or his WBC mandatory Jermall Charlo. WBA champion Ryota Murata will soon be ready to fight Golovkin as well. He might be a good option for Golovkin in 3 fights from now once he’s picked up some experience against some of the contenders in the United States. Right now, Murata doesn’t have the name for Golovkin to fight in the States.

“We’re going to do everything we can to make this fight,” said Loeffer. ”The fans want to see the fight again to see to see if Canelo will move around as much as he did the first fight or if he’ll actually stand and fight. Before the first fight, he said he has the real Mexican style and he’s going to fight that way. As it turned out, he fought more like Floyd [Mayweather Jr.] in that fight. It was very defensive. He was really in survival mode for 12 rounds,” said Loeffler.

It’s very likely that Canelo will fight Golovkin with the same style in the rematch as he did in their fight on September 16. The reason for this is because Canelo doesn’t have the engine or the size to fight Golovkin in a toe-to-toe battle. Canelo is just a short burst fighter, who gases out quickly when trading shots. Golovkin could have worn Canelo out if he stayed on top of him and literally forced him to fight hard. Golovkin gave Canelo escape routes by standing on the outside and jabbing him and throwing pot shots. That was the wrong way for Golovkin to wear Canelo down. If Golovkin had gone after Canelo the way that Liam Smith did in their fight last year in September, he very likely would have tired him out quickly and knocked him out with a body shot. Canelo moves his head a lot, and it makes it difficult to knock him out with shots aimed upstairs. Canelo is definitely vulnerable to getting hurt with body shots. That’s what Golovkin is going to need to do if he doesn’t want to end up with another controversial draw or worse.

“Of course, you’ve got to give Canelo credit,” said Loeffler. “He did fight in spurts, but Gennady as the champion was the one pressing the action. If you want to become a champion, you’ve got to take the titles away. I don’t know how you’re taking the titles away if you’re moving backwards. Not to disparage Canelo, but I think the fans were less unsatisfied, and I think it’ll be a great event,” said Loeffler.

Loeffler is right about Canelo not fighting like a challenger. He was fighting like he was sitting on a large lead, preserving it and playing it safe. You can argue that with the way 2 of the judges were scoring the Canelo-Golovkin fight, Canelo was sitting on a large lead the moment the fight began. One judge gave Canelo the victory by a score of 118-110. That looks like that judge only was looking at Canelo the entire fight, and not paying attention to what Golovkin was doing inside the ring. Another judge had it a draw with a 114-114 score. That judge gave Canelo round 7, which was a round where he took a beating. Golovkin came out looking angry at the start of the 7th after Canelo had used use a showboating move at the end of round 6 in which he put Golovkin in a head-lock and then hit him in the face while he was immobilized. The scoring was poor by all 3 Nevada State Athletic Commission assigned judges for the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight.

I still think it’s 3 fights next year,” said Loeffler about Golovkin possibly fighting 3 times in 2018, ”If he fights in May, and then in September, and then again in December,” said Loeffler.

It’s highly unlikely that Golovkin will be fighting 3 times in 2018. If he’s serious about wanting to fight Canelo 2 times in 2018, then there’s no way he’ll fight 3 times. If Golovkin fights Canelo in May and September, it’ll be too difficult to get back into the ring to fight in December unless he knocks Canelo out early.

”We can’t wait forever for Canelo to decide,” said Loeffler. If it gets to a certain point, we have arenas ready on hold and I need a contingency plan and contingency opponents as well. Canelo is clearly Plan-A, and the priority, but we also have a Plan-B and C in place in order that Gennady’s career isn’t held up. You can’t put your career on hold and then all of a sudden you’re sitting there without a fight, and then you start losing arena dates, and then HBO is going to start saying we gave the dates away. So, it always has to be a Plan-B,” said Loeffler.

Loeffler is already putting Golovkin’s career on hold by not matching him in December. He should have gone that when it was clear that Golden Boy was going to be looking in another direction towards matching Canelo against the winner of the Saunders vs. Lemieux. Now it’s not only the winner that fight that Canelo could fight next on May 5, it’s also the Miguel Cotto vs. Sadam Ali and the Danny Jacobs vs. Luis Arias fights. De La Hoya says he wants to wait until all 3 of those fights are done before he makes a decision who he’ll match Canelo up against next. It’s unclear why Loeffler is even bothering to wait around until December. He should be moving on already unless Golden Boy gives him a clear sign that they want to make the Canelo vs. Golovkin rematch right now. Since that’s not happening, Loeffler should move on to his Plan-B options, whoever that is.

“I clearly feel that one of the guys was fighting with a Mexican style, and the other guy was fighting to [to survive,” said Loeffler in pointing out the difference in the way Golovkin was fighting in comparison to how Canelo was in their fight on September 16. “He definitely impressed one of the judges, and the other judge for whatever reason thought it was a draw. There’s only one way to resolve it. Most people I know at best scored it a draw, and the majority of the people had Gennady winning. I think Harold Lederman was correct on HBO. He was neutral. Both guys were with HBO.

There’s no way for Harold to sway one way or another, and he had it 8 rounds to 4. That’s really how I saw the fight. On the replay, you see a lot of punches Canelo throws were blocked by Gennady. But when the crowd reacts to them sometimes, that can influence the judges. But when you see Gennady’s jab clearly landing, and a lot of the activity and coming forward and a number of jabs and punches landed and the punch stats, it wasn’t that difficult to score the fight,” said Loeffler.

It’s pretty clear that Golovkin did more than enough to win the fight against Canelo. It’s academic at this point that Golovkin won the fight, but 2 of the Nevada judges didn’t give him the victory. The fact that Canelo and Golden Boy aren’t eager to make the rematch with Golovkin tells you all you need to know about the confidence they have. Actions speak louder than words. Canelo and Golden Boy’s reluctance to make the Golovkin rematch now suggest that they lack the confidence to take the fight because they don’t believe they can win it. The way that Canelo fought against Golovkin, I don’t think he can ever beat him without the crazy scoring that we saw from 2 of the judges in their September fight.