By Radio Rahim
Los Angeles - At the moment, there are ongoing negotiations for middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) to make a defense of his IBF, IBO, WBA, WBC world titles on June 10 in his home country of Kazakhstan.
The goal is to finalize a deal to fight WBO world champion Billy Joe Saunders (24-0, 12 KOs) in a high stakes unfication.
But the fight is receiving some opposition from a third party.
Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya, who promotes Mexican superstar Saul "Canelo" Alvarez, is firmly not in favor of Golovkin taking a fight in the month of June.
De La Hoya's company is actively in negotiations to finalize a Canelo-Golovkin fight in September during Mexican Independence Day weekend.
Canelo would first have to win his upcoming pay-per-view fight with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on May 6 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
De La Hoya believes there is too much risk involved with Golovkin taking a fight in June, because he could suffer a cut or some other injury - and it also cuts the amount of time they will have at their disposal to promote the September pay-per-view.
If Golovkin follows through with a June return, De La Hoya has threatened to take Canelo off the table for September.
Ringstar Sports CEO Richard Schaefer agrees with his former business partner. Schaefer was a co-founder and the former CEO of Golden Boy - until he departed from the company in 2014. De La Hoya and Schaefer were then involved in a very tense legal battle, with a settlement being reached in early 2015.
In this particular situation, Schaefer agrees with De La Hoya's position and reasoning when it comes to a June fight for GGG. And Schaefer, if he was in De La Hoya's shoes, would likely take the same position.
"I have to agree with Oscar on this one, because the fact is and I just said this before, you need to know how to promote pay-per-view. You can not promote a big pay-per-view with a month or two of time. If Triple G is going to fight in June in Kazakhstan, by the time he's done and heals, you're going to have two months to promote a September pay-per-view - and that's not how you maximize pay-per-view revenue," Schaefer explained to BoxingScene.com.
"Ideally you want a minimum of three months to promote a pay-per-view. If they could sit down this week or next week, and at least agree on terms, and then start putting together a pay-per-view promotion for September. Obviously they can't start until Canelo wins, but once the Cinco De Mayo is over."
"If they could put something together that is contingent on Canelo winning, then they can start that night in Vegas. That night they can start the pay-per-view promotion with the unveiling of a video, of a TV spot. Imagine if you have May, June, July, August - four and a half months, all of the stuff that you can do - that's how you promote pay-per-view."
"If Golovkin wants to go and fight in Kazakhstan, because of the World Expo and other reasons.. the Kazakhstan government is a sponsor of Golovkin and it's important to him.. but don't go and blame Canelo and Oscar, in this particular case, if the fight doesn't happen. The ones to blame are Golovkin and [promoter Tom] Loeffler. And this is not a case of kissing up to Oscar or kissing up to Golovkin - I want to keep it real and that is the truth."
