Gennady Golovkin and Daniel Jacobs still in negotiations

The negotiations for a middleweight titlist defense between Gennady Golovkin and Daniel Jacobs are ongoing. Tom Loeffler of K2 promotions, who represents Golovkin, tells RingTV that he is hopeful both sides can hammer out a deal for the fight as the clock for the open negotiation period winds down.

"Our goal would be to work out a deal," Golovkin promoter Tom Loeffler said in a text message to RingTV.com on Wednesday, giving an update on the state of the negotiations. "This (is) always more productive." He added of the discussions, "Still trying to work out the details, hopefully we will have some resolution soon."

Golovkin was ordered to begin negotiations to fight mandatory challenger Jacobs just a couple days after stopping Kell Brook in five rounds. The WBA specifically gave a Sept. 12th start date for open negotiations with a 30-day period before the fight would be ordered to purse bid. We're now down to the last several days before that open negotiation period is up.

In preparation for Golovkin's next fight, Loeffler has a December 10th date on hold at Madison Square Garden where he'd like the fight to be held. Meanwhile Lou DiBella, who formally promotes Jacobs, has the Barclays Center on hold for the same date which would be their venue preference -- with Jacobs, of course, being a Brooklyn native.

There's been some rumors that this fight could be punted to 2017, which HBO would reportedly accommodate so long as a deal is stuck for early in the year, but hopefully we can get this fight done sooner than later. Boxing fans deserve a nice Christmas present.