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On
Saturday afternoon in a small conference room at the LAX Marriott, WBA
middleweight beltholder Gennady Golovkin held a media roundtable with a select
handful of boxing scribes. If it were up to him, he'd be talking about his
upcoming summer showdown against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. But alas, Chavez seemed
more intent on battling his promoter, Top Rank Promotions than facing “GGG.”
In a major buzzkill to boxing
fans and Golovkin himself, that fight has gone to “Bolivian.”
“I'm disappointed because I
was so confident about the fight and I hope that it will happen soon,” he said.
For that particular match-up, Golovkin was more than willing to move up to 168
pounds. “By that time, I'll be stronger; I'll be bigger. By the time this fight
happens, I'll be more prepared.”
For the better part of the
past month or so, Golovkin had waited on Chavez to put his name on the dotted
line as he had quickly agreed upon the terms for a July 19th face-off. “I hope this fight will happen at some point. It'll be a very big
show,” said Golovkin, who halted Osumanu Adama in seven rounds on February 1st in Monte Carlo to kick off his 2014. He was slated to face Andy Lee on April 26th but that appointment was canceled as his father unexpectedly passed away in the
spring (the media members in attendance were asked not to inquire about this
subject).
“It'll happen whenever
Chavez signs the contract,” said Tom Loeffler, Managing Director of K2
Promotions, who did lay out their immediate plans for Golovkin. “We can say
he's definitely going to be fighting on HBO. It'll be July 26th and it'll
in Madison Square Garden.”
And according to Loeffler,
it may not necessarily be staged at the Theater but the big room. Yeah, where
the Knicks and Rangers play.
“It depends on the opponent,
so we have both reserved at this point. We're going to try to get the biggest
name opponent possible. Obviously we wanted to have the Chavez fight on July 19th.
We had agreed to all the terms on our side. We made a lot of concessions. We
didn't ask for a catchweight. We made a lot of financial concessions,”
explained Loeffler. “It was clear that Chavez was going to get the much larger
financial guarantee to get in the ring with Gennady but we looked at that fight
as the opportunity to be his first fight on pay-per-view and his first fight
here on the West Coast.”
Golovkin-Chavez was
scheduled for The Forum (where he would be later that evening watching Juan Manuel
Marquez-Mike Alvarado). Now the focus is on Daniel Geale, who once held the IBF
title. Last week, the WBA announced that Jarrod Fletcher would be Golovkin's
mandatory contender. Loeffler says they requested a “special permit” to face
Geale next, who is rated third by the WBA. “Gennady has no issue with facing
anybody at middleweight and I made that clear to the WBA. So we're hoping that
they grant the request, which is a common practice when Gennady was the
mandatory challenger for Felix Sturm. They gave him like over two years,'”
recalled Loeffler, who said he was in discussions with Geale's promoter, Gary
Shaw.
And if this exception isn't
granted?
Loeffler says, “We'll have
to deal with that but it's clearly our intention and HBO's intention for Daniel
Geale, who they consider a bigger name. Geale's fought on HBO before; he's a
former champion. That's who we'd like to go after.” When asked about this
potential match-up, in his typically understated manner, Golovkin said, “Before
me, [Geale] had two belts; why not? I respect everyone who I have to fight.”
But what about WBO titlist
Peter Quillin, who has become a staple of Showtime in recent years? Well, that's
the problem, the little “Cold War” that is plaguing the business. Quillin is
aligned with Golden Boy Promotions and adviser Al Haymon, who have been
embargoed from the network. HBO Sports Director of Programming Peter Nelson
stated, “[HBO] doesn’t rule anybody out.”
“The discussions I've had
with Peter and HBO at length and we have a long-term commitment to HBO and
they're committed to providing the platform for Gennady. As Peter said, they
haven't ruled anybody out, which means they would approve Quillin at some
point. Whether Quillin would get in the ring with him is a different story.
There's a lot of politics in that situation but I strongly believe if Quillin
wanted to make the fight, we would discuss it with HBO to approve him as an
opponent,” explained Loeffler.
Then there is the winner of
the June 7th bout between the recognized middleweight king, Sergio
Martinez and Miguel Cotto. Obviously, Golovkin would like to face the victor. “Yes,
of course I want to fight the person who wins it. It would be a beautiful
thing.”
But all this conjecture
wouldn't be necessary had the Chavez fight been consummated. This fight was
perfect for Golovkin on so many levels. He was facing a popular Mexican fighter
but it was also a bout big enough to be on the pay-per-view platform. It had
the potential to be the star-making vehicle K2 and Golovkin were yearning for.
“It's funny because Bob Arum
was always positive he could deliver it, even when we were at the [Manny] Pacquiao
[vs. Tim Bradley] fight. We had agreed to all the terms before the Pacquiao
fight. The original plan was that we would announce the fight at the Pacquiao
fight, so we had agreed to terms. We had made plans for Gennady to fly into Las
Vegas. Chavez was at the fight in Las Vegas and had they signed, we would have
announced it at the Pacquiao fight,” said Loeffler.
“Since it didn't happen, then I started getting concerned and then I guess Bob,
at that point, had raised the offer and was still confident he could deliver
Chavez and gave him like another two weeks to do the fight and then it became,
at some point, pretty clear it wasn't going to happen - at least not for July,”
continued Loeffler.
“I don't think [Chavez]
wanted it,” said Golovkin's trainer, Abel Sanchez, bluntly. “I think he was
advised by his father to take the fight but I think people around him made him
understand the danger of the fight. I think it's really foolish the kind of
money that he was going to get. It was more than he would've made in three or
four fights, according to what he's made in the past; right? He was guaranteed
$12 million without winning a round; it's crazy. But as I told Gennady four
years ago, ‘You're going to be the most avoided middleweight. Nobody's going to
want to fight you,’ and that's exactly it.”
Golovkin is now 32. He's
certainly not old but he's not necessarily young either. You get the sense that
there is a certain window of time in which he has to make his mark on the sport.
Sanchez says he has a fighting machine with low mileage on the odometer. “Yeah,
because he turned pro at 26,” said Sanchez (actually, Golovkin turned pro in
2006 at the age of 24), “so he hasn't had that many difficult fights and in the
amateurs, even though he had a lot of fights, those were early in his career.
The fights at the end of his amateur career were more international stuff. He
didn't really struggle with them. He knocked [Lucian] Bute out while leading.
So to me, he's a young 26, 27-year-old.”
One night earlier, Sanchez
was on the East Coast working the corner of Joel Diaz (who headlined last week’s
edition of “ShoBox”) and said, invariably, that wherever he goes, the questions
he receives always involve Golovkin. Later that evening while at The Forum,
Golovkin was mobbed by adoring fans - mostly of the Mexican variety - as he
walked around the venue. It's clear that his easygoing, modest manner combined
with his hard-hitting, fan-friendly style has resonated with the masses.
There's likeability to Golovkin that is very apparent.
As the likes of Pacquiao and
Floyd Mayweather head into the twilights of their careers, the sport needs new
stars. It's clear that “GGG” could take up the mantle of the “Pac-Man,” the
flame-throwing foreigner who somehow transcends the hardcore following of the
sport to become a legitimate franchise. It sounds farfetched but seven, eight
years ago, did anyone think a small, Filipino fighter would become such an international
star?
“We believe Gennady's going
to be the next pay-per-view star. I really feel that, the response that we've
gotten over the fights we've done so far. People forget it's been less than two
years since he's been on American television,” reminded Loeffler. Since his stateside
debut in September of 2012, Golovkin’s ratings on HBO have grown exponentially.
“[Golovkin] became the highest viewed fighter in boxing who's yet to fight on
pay-per-view,” pointed out Nelson.
But to become that superstar
will take the proper dance partners. Mayweather needed Oscar De la Hoya.
Pacquiao had the likes of Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik Morales and
Marquez. If not Chavez, how ‘bout the winner of next week’s huge “domestic
fight” between Carl Froch and George Groves? Loeffler says, “Gennady would go
to England to fight those guys over there. Mikkel Kessler announced that he's
fighting again, so he becomes an interesting opponent. So I think it'll open up
quite a bit, as opposed to last year.”
Regardless, Golovkin is more
than willing to stay as active as possible (by today's standards, of course)
like he did in 2013.
“Two more fights this year
and next year, I want three or four,” said the man from Kazakhstan, who has a professional
mark of 29-0 (26).
“I'm ready to fight all the
boxers you just named here. I want them to know I'm ready to fight all of them
and I'm waiting for these fights. I want to see who's ready to fight because
I'm open to fight all of them.”
TNR
Here's the latest episode of
“The Next Round” with Gabe Montoya and Yours Truly:
GOOD BOY FLURRIES
Top Rank announced a
contract extension with Manny Pacquiao that will run through December 31st,
2016. I wonder what Chavez Jr. thinks of all this...The Marquez-Alvarado fight
on HBO drew just under 1.2 million viewers and peaked at 1.3 million...So is
Yuri Foreman off the Sergio Martinez-Miguel Cotto undercard or not?...Loeffler
mentioned that Martin Murray was made an offer to face Golovkin “that were
better than what he got for Sergio Martinez” and for bouts outside the U.S. He
also noted that in the Chavez-GGG contract, there was a million-dollar penalty
for either fighter who came in heavier than 168 pounds...Can OKC defeat the
Spurs without Serge Ibaka? It sure doesn't look like it after one game...Yes,
I've booked my flight for the Terence Crawford-Yuriorkis Gamboa fight in Omaha
on June 28th So yeah, I'll be
going to Nebraska twice this year, for this fight and the Miami-Nebraska game
in September....
I can be reached
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