Canelo Alvarez vs Gennady Golovkin: Why ‘eight-figure’ megafight feels like a long con

Within the space of eight days, both Gennady Golovkin and Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez have ended the unbeaten records of a British opponent. Each time, post-fight conversation quickly moved away from what just happened and onto what the world really wants to see: these two members of the pound-for-pound elite do battle against one another.

Saturday night saw Alvarez stop Liam Smith with a vicious body shot in round nine at the AT&T Stadium in Dallas before over 50,000 fans. The bout, much like Golovkin’s TKO success over Kell Brook at London’s O2 Arena, was certainly a hot ticket event but nonetheless ran its inevitable course and left fight fans wondering just how big a box office draw the duo would be on collision course, rather than merely spinning their wheels.

Despite being on the lips of each man’s respective promotional team for a year or so now, the closest we’ve come to setting up Canelo-Golovkin has been Alvarez’s side Golden Boy Promotions proclaiming that the two would meet in September 2017 - some 18 months after the original announcement and still one full year away.

Between that and Alvarez vacating the WBC middleweight title in May - removing himself from a mandatory defence vs GGG in the process - the general consensus was that in boxing’s latest game of matchmaking cat-and-mouse, the Mexican was Jerry to the Kazakh’s Tom.

However, Golden Boy head honcho Oscar de la Hoya muddied the waters further after Canelo-Smith by claiming that he has made K2 Promotions a lucrative offer to make the megafight happen.

“I didn’t want to talk about any other offers that we had made to anyone else,” De La Hoya said. “I know you know what I’m talking about.

“So, 30 days ago I made an offer to GGG and his people. I made an eight-figure offer.

“I believe it’s an offer that was two, three, four times what he’s ever made and haven’t heard back. And that’s the bottom line.”

De La Hoya said he spoke to Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones on fight night about possibly staging Canelo-GGG at AT&T Stadium as well.

“He would love that fight here in his stadium,” De La Hoya said. “I told him, ‘Jerry, you have to show me the money.’ That’s the bottom line.

“Because the bottom line is Canelo isn’t afraid of anybody. He’s going to fight GGG in September.”

De La Hoya mapped out a schedule for Canelo to possibly fight in December in New York and again in May and then “the big fight” with Golovkin in 12 months.

“All I need is for GGG and his people to at least call us back and negotiate and to take the offer,” De La Hoya said.

“GGG has said that he’s not a businessman and he’s said publicly that Canelo is going to offer him $2 million.

“Well, guess what? There’s an eight-figure number on the table for Golovkin. Sign the contract and let’s stop with this nonsense.”

Golovkin promoter Loeffler responded to the De La Hoya’s accusations of ignoring his huge money offer, telling RingTV.com after the fight that Golden Boy’s offer was in fact not substantial enough.

“There were some preliminary discussions with (Golden Boy),” Loeffler wrote in a text. “But nothing of substance that was turned down. (Golovkin) would have fought Canelo last May if that would have been possible (before Canelo vacated the title to his mandatory Golovkin).”

At present, it’s a guessing game as to which side of these negotiations is being sincere in public and why this big bout is being held off so much. Perhaps both sides believe such games will only entice fans further when it actually does happen, despite most punters’ claims to the contrary.

After all, Mayweather-Pacquiao broke almost every record on offer despite all the complaints of it being five years too late and (correct) predictions that it would disappoint between the ropes.

And that’s why there are indeed three scenarios to consider here: messing around by Canelo’s team, messing around by Golovkin’s team and indeed, extremely well-orchestrated maneuvers by both to keep the boxing world guessing for close to two years before we get the big pay-off (thus giving both fighters and the organisers an even bigger pay-off, literally).

Until then, it seems both Canelo and Golovkin will continue to search for fights with enough intrigue so as not to completely alienate those potential PPV buyers in a year’s time. They may well have run out of game but out-of-their-depth British fighters to face off against, so mandatory challengers for their current respective world title belts will probably have to suffice.

As for us fans, we have to hope that this two-year journey of confusion and frustration doesn’t snowball into a Floyd-Manny five year delay - or worse.