Billy's Boxing Blog

By William Trillo

Let’s make no mistake about it. The reason that it took over two years to make the GGG vs. Canelo fight a reality is the fact that “someone” at Golden Boy was not going to put his Meal Ticket on the line until he believed that Gennady Golovkin has peaked and is now on the downside of his career. After performances against Kell Brook and Danny Jacobs that had many so called experts speculating that GGG is not the same fighter anymore…well…the fight coincidentally got made.

Everyone at Golden Boy will adamantly deny there was any such plan on their part. There is no way they can openly admit to the fact that they were playing a waiting game before putting their Golden Egg laying Goose on the line against Golovkin.

In fact, in a recently published interview on Boxingscene Canelo himself states, “We basically had a deal done before the (Jacobs) fight…He just had to be victorious and I had to win my fight, so no, it had nothing to do with it.”

Doing a little fact touching I reached out to Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler in regard to that statement. The Managing Director of K2 Promotions said, “No, the deal was night finalized until fight week of the Chavez, (vs. Canelo), fight.”

So, you have to ask yourself, why would Canelo make that false statement?

I will let my readers come to that conclusion on their own.

Coincidentally, on the day of the GGG/Canelo Los Angeles open workout I briefly touched on the subject with Loeffler himself. The following is a transcript of that interview:

Pound4Pound: There are those who say that they, Golden Boy, finally believe that Gennady has peaked and is now on his downside of his career, how do you answer that?

Tom Loeffler: There is only one way to find out and that will be on September 16th. I know there have been critics of Triple G pointing to the fights with Kell Brook and Danny Jacobs but the true test will be how he looks September 16th. I think Gennady will put on the best performance of his career. The motivation I have seen from him and the sparkle in his eye when he is in training camp or talking Abel about the strategy for the fight, or with me in regard to the marketing of the fight, he, (GGG), is on another level. Even though it’s a different person in the ring with him, the platform he is on and the international attention this fight is getting…it’s just on a completely different level.

P4P: Do you give any credence or do you give any validity to that theory that the reason the other side finally took the fight is because they think they see a decline in Gennady’s abilities?

TL: Look, if people think GGG is slipping that’s going to make my job easier to get people actually in the ring to fight him. It was impossible the last couple of years to get any other champion to risk their title to get in the ring with him. So, we will see on September 16th. And if Gennady wins a lot of doors are going to open for him and we will see how it goes with the fighters who weren’t interested in fighting him before.

P4P: Would you care to comment on Miguel Cotto and Freddie Roach saying after their victory a couple of weeks ago that they would love to fight GGG for Cotto’s farewell fight?

TL: We have respect for Miguel and what he has accomplished in the ring and we have a ton of respect for Freddie as well. It would be an honor for Gennady, if he beats Canelo, to fight a legend like Miguel Cotto. He has been involved in some of the biggest fights in the sport of boxing against some of boxings biggest names. If GGG is successful against Canelo and has an opportunity to fight Cotto that would be an event that our side would be very interested in.

Personally, I think we have every reason to believe this was a calculated maneuver on the part of Golden Boy. They wanted to put their top money making fighter in the right position to come out on top on September 16th. The perceived decline of Golovkin’s skills helped them sit down at the negotiating table and led them to sign the contract to make this highly anticipated fight official.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t address the main event this weekend that was also promoted by K2. Srisaket Rungvisai’s obliteration of Roman Gonzalez was not only stunning but sad.

In his victory Rungvisai was masterful and deserves to be applauded.

For Gonzalez, who was considered one of the top fighters in boxing, this was heart wrenching. To see him lying on the canvas was a blow to fight fans around the globe. We all wish him the best whether or not he chooses to ever step in the ring again. He too deserves to be applauded.

Check out www.Pound4Pound.com for all the latest boxing news.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 11th, 2017 at 3:17 am and is filed under Boxing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.