‘Outrageous’ Golovkin counteroffer endangers a September rematch with Alvarez, promoter says

Calling the terms of a counteroffer proposed by Gennady Golovkin’s team “outrageous,” Canelo Alvarez’s promoter said Friday that efforts to stage a September rematch between the marquee middleweights is in serious jeopardy, barring a change in the champion’s position.

Eric Gomez, the president of Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions that represents Mexico’s former two-division champion Alvarez, said a renewed “demand” is unacceptable.

“We’re not going to do it. As of right now, it’s off,” Gomez said of efforts to make the Sept. 15 bout that was scrapped from a previously agreed-upon May 5 date by Alvarez’s two positive tests for the banned substance clenbuterol.

“I’m hoping we can still make the fight, but [Thursday] felt like a deal killer.”

Gomez declined to detail what Golovkin (38-0-1, 34 knockouts) asked for, although his promoter, Tom Loeffler, has made it clear that the three-belt middleweight champion believes he was “damaged” by Alvarez’s six-month suspension by the Nevada Athletic Commission that forced cancellation of the fight.

Loeffler had said he wanted to renegotiate the deal after Golovkin settled for a far smaller $1-million guarantee when he knocked out Vanes Martirosyan on May 5 at StubHub Center instead of the expected $20 million he would make for fighting Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs).

But Loeffler added he didn’t believe those reworked terms would be a major obstacle, repeating often that Golovkin and Alvarez “need each other” to maximize their purse money in the division after drawing 1.3 million pay-per-view buys and a $27-million gate for their September draw in Las Vegas.

“I’m hoping to talk to Tom again” later Friday, Gomez said, “but if they’re bluffing — and I don’t know why they would be doing this — it’s not going to work. We’re not going to go for it.”

Loeffler did not immediately respond to messages Thursday and Friday.

Alvarez is the more significant draw for the bout that is scheduled to be staged on Mexican Independence weekend, but Gomez conceded that a revised deal originally discussed with Golovkin’s team in April considered the champion’s lost earnings.

“They did an about-face. They’ve had an agreement for six weeks now,” Gomez said. “We sent them an agreement [in late April]. They came back with changes. We accepted those changes. They’ve been sitting on this agreement now, and I was getting information that the structure was good, that everything was good.

“All of a sudden they did a 180-degrees change .… Oscar feels like we’ve been jerked around for six weeks.”

And Gomez said he believes Golovkin, 36, is turning the proverbial screws on the deal.

“I think Gennady’s scared,” Gomez said. “How do you blow up a fight? You make outrageous demands. So I think they really don’t want the fight.”

Gomez said on the heels of Golovkin publicly berating Alvarez for his positive drug tests in February, the champion now has to back it up in the ring and convincingly defeat a fighter he’s accused of knowingly using the substance that Alvarez claims he accidentally ingested by eating Mexican beef.

“Gennady can get by all the fighters like Vanes in the world, and knock them out with jabs, but he hit Canelo with his best shots and Canelo was still there and came back and threw back,” Gomez said. “I think he’s afraid. He knows he’s a little older now, fighting a younger kid in his prime.

Canelo Alvarez, right, and Gennady Golovkin fought to a draw on Sept. 17, 2017.

(John Locher / Associated Press )

“And if he loses to Canelo, he might retire. So what’s he going to do? He’s going to fight a bunch of guys like Vanes and ride off into the sunset … I don’t know. We jumped through hoops to make this fight. And now we’ll see what happens.”

Gomez said he’s already spoken to the promoters for World Boxing Organization middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders and former secondary World Boxing Assn. champion Daniel Jacobs about possible September meetings, and both fighters are interested.

“They’re both willing and able to do a fight,” Gomez said.

Alvarez also expects to fight in December should he emerge healthy from a September bout, Gomez said.