:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/51415471/602994486.0.jpg)
A potential fight between Gennady Golovkin and Daniel Jacobs won’t take place on December 10, its original target date with HBO and Madison Square Garden, but the negotiations are ongoing, as the two sides want to avoid a purse bid.
Jacobs’ team recently lost an appeal with the WBA to get better than a 75-25 split for the mandatory bout, and with both sides still talking, they’re hoping to reach a deal for early 2017.
Golovkin holds the WBA, WBC, and IBF middleweight titles, while Jacobs has been allowed to call himself WBA “world” champion, a farcical title that clearly means nothing, as it doesn’t even entitle him to more than the normal 25% of the purse given to any ham-and-egger mandatory challenger the sanctioning body names for a title fight.
The 34-year-old Golovkin fought twice in 2016, beating Dominic Wade and Kell Brook, both by early stoppage. Jacobs, 29, fought just once, defeating Sergio Mora in a rematch in September, failing to really capitalize on the momentum of his first round knockout of Peter Quillin last December.