K2 promoter Tom Loeffler fields questions from the media about the status of negotiations to have a May rematch between Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin. And if you pay close enough attention to his remarks, I think it’s fairly easy to read between the lines...
Loeffler on how the draw with Canelo affected Golovkin’s career:
“It had a big effect on his career. Instead of having an unblemished record with a high knockout percentage, he has a draw on his record and naturally that made the rematch a lot more...different to negotiate than had he won the fight — because we had those terms already agreed the first time.
“You know, but, uh, [Golovkin] still wants to prove that he’s the best. RING magazine voted him as the best boxer in the sport of boxing and he wants to continue his winning streak. If he does the rematch with Canelo it would match Bernard Hopkins’ title defenses of 20. He’s got 19 right now, so, you know, he’s at that legendary status right now where he’s making history every time he gets in the ring so...He’s got to make the final decision and we’ll see if we can work out the final terms with Golden Boy.”
On if these negotiations have been more difficult then the first time around:
“Well the first time it was a big delay when the WBC first ordered it. Then a couple fights happened in between and then it finally happened. And with the rematch, look, whenever you can have a successful financial event — a lot of megafights don’t live up to their billing in the ring or financially with the whole promotion. This was an exciting fight in the ring, very successful financial fight...so whenever you have a big piece of the pie like that, usually it shouldn’t be that complicated to split it up.
“We feel that Triple G brings a lot of value to the ring. We more than doubled the gate that Canelo did with Cotto. Canelo naturally has his very strong fanbase. So I think that both fanbases compliment each other and I think both guys need each other to do those types of numbers at the gate, those type of pay-per-view numbers. They need each other and that’s why this is kind of a natural for them to fight again.”
On if he wants the second fight to happen in Las Vegas:
“I think Canelo wants Vegas [laughs]. But, you know, again, the focus would be to get the fight done and finalized, and then once the fight is done then I’ll sit down with Eric [Gomez] and we’ll go through the different numbers from the people that are interested. But it would be premature to do that until we actually have the fight finalized.
“[Madison Square Garden] is very interested. The Garden, Triple G fought there six times, Canelo’s never fought there but he’s said that he’s wanted to fight there in the past so, the Garden’s extremely interested in having that rematch coming to the Garden.”
On if he’s concerned about the judging:
“There’s always a concern about the judging...we certainly are in a position — both the sides are in a position to, if there’s a particular judge that we feel might not be conducive to one person’s style then we can talk to the commission about that. But so far, like I said, all that is premature until we can actually finalize the fight. Then we’ll worry about everything else.”