By Andreas Hale
They’re doing it again.
Not too long after Gennady Golovkin’s hard-fought unanimous decision victory over Danny Jacobs, Oscar De La Hoya rescinded his “verbal agreement” for a Canelo-GGG fight in order to “make it fair” in light of Golovkin’s relatively low pay per view numbers (150k). Which now essentially takes us back to the drawing board for the biggest fight that can be made in boxing that doesn’t feature an MMA fighter and a retired boxer.
Although it is no secret that Canelo is the current king of PPV among active boxers, De La Hoya will be doing his fighter no favors if he tries to renegotiate the money split with Golovkin. It basically confirms what everyone knew: Oscar De La Hoya was blowing smoke.
“People talk about Golovkin being this big superstar. Why is he selling only between 100,000 and 200,000 homes?” De La Hoya said to the Los Angeles Times. “He’s no Canelo, that’s for sure.”
Obviously.
But the issue is that De La Hoya is negating the fact that Canelo’s drawing power comes largely from his Mexican fan base that is stationed in the United States. Golovkin doesn’t have that built in base of fans that have national pride for him stateside. And that affects the PPV draw. De La Hoya certainly must realize that, right?
As a businessman who has been in the business of promoting fights for over a decade, he should be keenly aware of who draws and why. But the way he’s handling this potential fight is also part of being a businessman. He knows that Canelo-Chavez Jr. is going to pull in substantially better pay per view numbers when the two meet on Cinco De Mayo weekend in Las Vegas. And he’s going to use that as extra leverage to negotiate a bigger slice of the pie for his side.
While it is good business, it’s bad for boxing and arguably worse for Canelo.
If you asked Canelo to step into the ring with GGG in a “winner take all” match, chances are he would. He wants to fight Golovkin and prove that he’s the better fighter. It’s probable that fight fans and the media suggesting that he’s “scared” of Canelo genuinely annoy him. If there’s one thing that’s for certain, it’s that Canelo is scared of no opponent. But the way that these negotiations have played out in an effort to make this fight a bigger attraction has only damaged his standing with boxing fans.
Canelo is entering into casual boxing fan territory. And that’s territory where nobody cares about what’s happening behind the scenes. Nobody cares about the weights or the purse split. Hell, nobody cares what title they are fighting for. All they care about is the fight happening. If the fight isn’t happening, somebody is to blame. And when they type into their Google machine “Canelo GGG” and see Oscar De La Hoya talking about pulling the verbal deal off the table, it only makes Canelo look bad. It’s evident that GGG wants the fight. It’s not so evident that Canelo is reciprocating because no matter what he says in his post fight interviews, the fight still hasn’t been made.
This isn’t Mayweather-Pacqiuao and the negotiations shouldn’t drag out like that one did. As much business as the 2015 megafight did, it did just as much damage to the sport. Hardcore fans and casual fans were unhappy with the fight not meeting the hype and many were exhausted by the time it happened. Canelo-GGG doesn’t have that same aura surrounding it. It’s a big fight, but it is not going to do business like Mayweather-Pacquiao. Furthermore, to keep trotting GGG and Canelo out against other opponents, you run the risk of having one of them lose.
Granted, Pacquiao being knocked out by Juan Manuel Marquez didn’t completely squash the fight. However, it did take time for that fight to be built back up. And that’s time that GGG really doesn’t have. For that matter, Canelo doesn’t have enough opponents to fight that will satisfy a fickle base that will only get more and more antsy as the months go by.
In many people’s view, GGG is ripe for the taking after Jacobs “exposed” him in their showdown. That concept may be a bit of a stretch considering that many people undervalued what Jacobs brought to the table as a boxer. Not to mention that Jacobs and Canelo have differing styles and you’ll be hard pressed to find another opponent who can emulate what Jacobs did against Golovkin. However, it does level the playing field and generate more interest in the fight. All Canelo has to do is look good in beating Chavez Jr. to make a statement.
But if De La Hoya decides to push this fight back in an effort to build momentum and negotiate a better split, he’s going to do more damage to his fighter than he can imagine.
Canelo-GGG needs to happen sooner than later. There’s no reason to continue wasting time. Yes, the fight is going to be a huge risk for Canelo, but there more positives than negatives that can come out of the fight being made.
2017 has already been great to boxing fans, why ruin it with this?
