The reason for the seeming loss of interest by the parties to pursue fight negotiations is obvious.
Both parties know that the fight won’t generate a reasonable revenue on pay-per-view (PPV) sales to sustain the expected expenditures in promoting the fight because of Golovkin’s anemic revenue input as shown in his PPV debut against David Lemieux last October.
Perhaps it would be better for Golovkin’s handlers to test his PPV drawing ability with another test fight against a veteran PPV star like Miguel Cotto to see how he performs on his second PPV fight. The fight can be arranged for early next year depending on Golovkin’s resulting PPV figures.
Golden Boy Promotions chief Oscar de la Hoya, who promotes Alvarez, has been under extreme pressure from restive fans who are demanding that the fight takes place in the fall.
Seven-time trainer of the year Freddie Roach said fans should not blame Alvarez for the unnecessary delay despite both sides agreeing to an interim fight before finalizing the deal.
“They’re all blaming Canelo, but look, fighters aren’t scared,” said Roach, who believes Golovkin will eventually become a PPV attraction. “It’s a business decision by his promoter. I don’t know why the blame went to the kid.”
“Why fight the toughest guy for no money? I think Triple-G is the best pound-for-pound guy out there right now. I rate him very highly. But he’s not that kind of a draw yet. Eventually, he will be, but that fight is going to just get bigger,” he added.
While there is a big clamor for the fight to happen in the fall, the promoters may have realized that the match needs more marinating as De la Hoya had said earlier.
As Roach said, Golovkin isn’t a PPV draw at this time but he will be shortly. It is difficult for the promoters to let the fans down but boxing is still business and ultimately business decisions will have to prevail for the good of stakeholders.
Again, as Dela Hoya said, the Canelo-GGG match-up needs more marinating.