Fansided

Canelo-GGG rematch possibly not dead as Golovkin backs off demands

By Nick Tylwalk

LAS VEGAS, NV - SEPTEMBER 16: (L-R) Canelo Alvarez throws a punch at Gennady Golovkin during their WBC, WBA and IBF middleweight championship bout at T-Mobile Arena on September 16, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
LAS VEGAS, NV - SEPTEMBER 16: (L-R) Canelo Alvarez throws a punch at Gennady Golovkin during their WBC, WBA and IBF middleweight championship bout at T-Mobile Arena on September 16, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) /
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The Canelo-GGG rematch, all but declared dead earlier this week, has faint but definite new hope now that GGG’s camp had budged.

“What a difference a day makes,” the old song goes. “24 little hours.” For the potential Canelo-GGG rematch, those lyrics have never seemed more appropriate.

On Tuesday, the much anticipated second bout between Canelo Alvarez and Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin was publicly squashed by Golden Boy head Oscar De La Hoya, who revealed that due to Golovkin’s insistence on a 50-50 split of the purse, his fighter was moving on and would likely fight Daniel Jacobs on Sept. 15 instead.

But there’s rarely such a thing as a final deadline in boxing, especially when it comes to huge fights like this one. Sure enough, ESPN’s Dan Rafael reports that GGG and his team have backed off their demands, offering to take the fight for a 55-45 split in Alvarez’s favor.

Tom Loeffler, who promotes GGG, explained their reasoning:

"He will come down to 55-45, which makes Canelo the A side. It will be Canelo making 55 percent in a rematch against GGG, which will be much bigger than the first fight was for sure. The rematch with GGG is his biggest fight by far and Gennady’s biggest fight. That’s the fight we want."

Though De La Hoya has stated all along that their preference was a 60-40 split for Canelo, if what really mattered was the Mexican superstar getting a bigger share, this might do the trick. For their first fight in early 2017, which ended in a draw, Canelo got a 70 percent share of the revenue.

Next: How FanSided scored Canelo-GGG I

Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez is going to take the latest offer to De La Hoya and Alvarez, so it’s now a bit of a waiting game to see if the fight can be put back together. With little doubt that Canelo-GGG II would be the biggest possible boxing match that could be made in any weight class in 2018, the suspicion here is that there are just too many dollars involved for it not to happen. Still, this is boxing, which sometimes defies logic, so a wait and see attitude is definitely warranted for fans of the sweet science.

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