Despite NSAC listing, Canelo-Golovkin 3 not official

Don’t get ahead of yourself. There’s been a lot of buzz today regarding the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s listing of an event to be promoted by Golden Boy and GGG Promotions on May 4th at the T-Mobile Arena, but a third fight between Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin is far from a done deal.

Tom Loeffler, who represents Golovkin, tells ESPN that Golden Boy requested to save the date with the commission, with Golden Boy president Eric Gomez acknowledging as much. In fact, Gomez even goes on to admit that there’s been little more than preliminary discussions to stage a third fight between the middleweights.

“We’ve had unofficial talks, like, ‘Yeah, we’re open to it.’ It’s very, very loose talks. We haven’t even sat down,” Gomez said. “I haven’t even seen [Loeffler] in person to discuss the fight, and I told him we would be open to it and he said the same thing and that was it.”

That said, any potential for a third fight between Canelo and Golovkin would likely be predicated on Golovkin signing a deal to join Canelo on DAZN. Golovkin is said to be currently weighing his options between DAZN, ESPN, and even PBC, but he’s in no rush to make his decision. Loeffler has even intimated that Golovkin won’t be making a firm decision until after the holidays.

But after a disputed draw, and then a disputed win for Canelo in their rematch, there’s still considerable interest in a third fight, which probably remains the biggest fight out there for either man. Early speculation is that Golden Boy is simply moving to secure the Cinco de Mayo fight date early so that Floyd Mayweather doesn’t try to swoop in and take the date for a potential rematch with Manny Pacquiao.