By Steve Kim
In the aftermath of Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez's victory over Liam Smith on Saturday night at AT&T Stadium near Dallas, Texas, almost immediately the talk centered around a potential match-up with middleweight king, Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (36-0, 33KOs). It was revealed by Golden Boy Promotions that they had made an initial proposal to Golovkin's side.
Stefan Friedman, spokesperson for Golden Boy told BoxingScene.com on Monday morning - "We have made an offer, we made the offer thirty days ago. We made it to 'Triple G's representatives and the offer is an eight-figure offer with upside of the pay-per-view to fight 'Canelo.
"'Triple G', Abel (Sanchez) have both been pretty relentless in saying Canelo's a businessman, Canelo's a clown, Canelo's whatever and Golovkin went as far as to say to Lance Pugmire (of the LA Times) that,'they will only offer me $2 million,' as a way to - he didn't say this - but to lowball him out of the fight.
"This is literally eight-figures, potential upside. I don't know where he's going to find that money elsewhere. So Canelo has said to us he will sign the contract the minute 'Triple G' agrees."
What has mystified Golden Boy is that no one from Golovkin's team had tried to contact them the past few weeks.
"To not get back to us to start a negotiation doesn't make a whole lot of sense," continued Friedman. "What's clear is that as we stopped talking for thirty days because we didn't want to disrespect Liam Smith, at all, because Canelo's doing his preparation. They've sort of used this opportunity to try to rile up Canelo or Golden Boy or whomever it is. We're professionals over here, I can't speak for the other side."
Despite whatever backlash Alvarez received in the wake of dropping the WBC 160-pound title a few months ago, over 50,000 fans showed up to his fight this past weekend. Alvarez says he would like a fight or two to fully acclimate to the middleweight division.
"We know we have the draw, you saw it on Saturday night, we're not rattled by anything. We're making a very fair offer both sides should be happy. Let's sign it, let's make it for September (of 2017), there will be a couple of fights to get used to it (the 160-pound weight limit) and we're on. I don't see why it's that hard," stated Friedman.
Later on this afternoon, Eric Gomez, the president of Golden Boy, revealed - "Tom (Loeffler, the managing director of K2 Promotions) sent me a short message, it was a text on Saturday night. I guess when everything started breaking and he just said - 'Hey, I'll reach out to you Monday so we can continued talks' - and that was it. I haven't heard from him, yet, I haven't heard anything from him."
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.
