Hearn: GGG Won't Wait For Canelo; Lots Of Opponents For Him

Eddie Hearn admits a third Canelo Alvarez-Gennadiy Golovkin fight remains the biggest bout that can be made in boxing.

That doesn’t mean Golovkin will wait around until Alvarez decides he is ready to fight Golovkin a third time. Hearn told BoxingScene.com recently that if Golovkin gets past Sergiy Derevyanchenko on October 5, the Kazakhstan native will start looking at opponents other than Alvarez either at middleweight or super middleweight.

“We want that fight because it’s the biggest fight in boxing,” said Hearn, whose company, Matchroom Boxing, recently became Golovkin’s co-promoter. “And also, it’s the fight that DAZN wants. You know, DAZN wants the fights that’s gonna create the most amount of interest, drive the most amount of subscriptions. That’s Canelo-Triple-G. But Canelo isn’t gonna be told what to do. Do you know what I mean?

“So, when Canelo says, ‘Yes, I’ll fight Triple-G now,’ that will happen. But until then, and I think this is one of the sort of mindsets behind Triple-G, ‘Let’s take control of our own career. Let’s not wait for people.’ You know, ‘Are we waiting on Canelo?’ No, no, no. We’re gonna fight Derevyanchenko. You’re gonna win the world title. And then we’re gonna [fight] this guy, this guy, this guy.”

According to Hearn, there are numerous attractive alternatives for the 37-year-old Golovkin among boxers already affiliated with Matchroom and DAZN.

The second fight of Golovkin’s six-bout contract with DAZN, reportedly worth more than $100 million, will come versus Derevyanchenko (13-1, 10 KOs). They’ll fight for the vacant IBF middleweight title four weeks from Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in New York.

“Derevyanchenko’s the first fight, and then we move forward after that,” Hearn said. “We wanna put him in those big fights. He’s in probably the final phase of his career now – the prime, when he wants all those big fights. Canelo, Callum Smith, Billy Joe Saunders, Demetrius Andrade. They’re all there for him.”

Andrade (28-0, 17 KOs), the WBO middleweight champ, desperately wants the type of opportunity a high-profile fight against Golovkin (39-1-1, 35 KOs) would afford him. Smith (26-0, 19 KOs), the WBA super middleweight champ, is considered the same type of high-risk, low-reward proposition as Andrade.

Saunders (28-0, 13 KOs), the former WBO middleweight champ and current WBO super middleweight title-holder, has wanted to box Golovkin for a couple years. A Golovkin-Saunders fight was tentatively scheduled for August 2018, when Golovkin and Alvarez arrived at an impasse during contract negotiations for their middleweight championship rematch.

“Demetrius Andrade, that’s a tough fight [for Golovkin],” Hearn said. “Callum Smith, that’s a tough fight. Billy Joe Saunders is a tough fight. We’ve got all those fights for Gennadiy Golovkin. A Danny Jacobs rematch as well. We’ve got a lot of opponents for him. And if he can’t get Canelo, all of those names come into play.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.