Gennady Golovkin-Daniel Jacobs middleweight title fight is on for March 18 at MSG

Gennady Golovkin and Daniel Jacobs struck a deal Saturday to fight March 18 at Madison Square Garden, avoiding a purse bid and setting the stage for a bout predicted to be Golovkin’s most difficult test yet.

While Kazakhstan’s Golovkin (36-0, 33 knockouts) has posted 23 consecutive knockouts and is seeking his 18th straight middleweight-title victory, the Los Angeles resident and Big Bear-trained three-belt champion is facing a skilled boxer-puncher in Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) in the HBO pay-per-view bout.

Golovkin promoter Tom Loeffler told the Los Angeles Times on Saturday that his “first” focus now that Golovkin-Jacobs is done is to place the World Boxing Council super-flyweight title rematch between unbeaten Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez and Mexico’s Carlos Cuadras as the co-main event following their September fight-of-the-year candidate.

Brooklyn’s Jacobs, who has overcome a cancer diagnosis to produce victories like his first-round knockout of Peter Quillin in 2015, is five years younger than Golovkin, 34, and has won 13 consecutive bouts by knockout, including his seventh-round technical knockout of Los Angeles’ Sergio Mora on Sept. 9.

Golovkin is the World Boxing Assn.’s primary, or “super,” champion, while Jacobs, standing as the WBA’s secondary, or “world,” champion, rose to become Golovkin’s mandatory opponent.

The problem was that the WBA mandates a purse-split percentage of 75-25 in the “super” champion’s favor, complicating the interest of Jacobs and his manager Al Haymon, who demanded a bigger share.

They faced a Monday deadline to strike an agreement or a purse bid, in which the mandated 75-25 split would stand, was due to take place at WBA headquarters in Panama.

“Daniel always had a number in mind, and they reached that number,” an official familiar with the talks but not authorized to discuss the deal told The Times.

“It’s always more productive to work out a deal amicably and it’s a fight for the fans to look forward to -- the two top fighters in the division and two of the top boxers in the sport,” Loeffler said. “Two huge punchers at MSG brings back memories of the glory days at MSG, and the reaction to this fight is already tremendous.”

Golovkin’s trainer, Abel Sanchez, says the test of Jacobs is one that will underline the credibility Sanchez says is still underappreciated about Golovkin.

“What I like is everyone considers Jacobs the No. 2 middleweight in the world, so Gennady will get the credit he deserves as being one of the great middleweights,” Sanchez said, as a possible bout against Mexico’s Canelo Alvarez looms in September for Golovkin. “Gennady had 350 amateur fights and 36 as a pro. He’s faced everything he can face.

“But what Danny has going for him is that his mentality is a lot different. He’s beaten something far more dangerous than Genndfy. He’s a good puncher, has good skills, but it’s his mentality that he will not be beaten more than anything else that’s impressive about him.”

Mora told The Times recently, “We’ve seen Golovkin get hit before and if Jacobs catches him, we might see Golovkin get hurt. Whoever lands the first big punch will have the edge … Jacobs is an athletic guy. It surprised me how big, athletic and muscular he is. He absolutely can do it. The chin is the suspect thing. I was able to drop him. But he’s a tremendous puncher and if he catches Golovkin, he’ll hurt Golovkin.”

Sanchez has read many comments from Jacobs about his confidence in beating Golovkin, who was subjected to some clean punches to the head by welterweight champion Kell Brook before stopping him in the sixth round and breaking Brook’s orbital bone in London on Sept. 10.

“What I would like is for people to read the articles about what Danny is saying. Read those after the fight,” Sanchez said. “It’s a tough fight, but Danny is the perfect opponent. Gennady’s going to destroy him, I don’t think the fight goes past the seventh round. Danny will not run. He’ll fight. So it’s a perfect fight.”

Sanchez said Golovkin didn’t stage getting hit in the face by Brook, “but it doesn’t trouble me. Golovkin’s a very smart man, and probably because he got hit, this fight is happening now. Kell Brook is a fast fighter, but once Golovkin got his range, it was an easy fight.”

Placing the bout on pay-per-view will compromise the audience who have interest in Golovkin, ranked by The Times as the No. 1 pound-for-pound boxer in the world. But as speculation continues that HBO is dealing with a decreased boxing budget, Loeffler said, “In order to make the fight work with guarantees and upsides, the best way to structure it was HBO pay-per-view [instead of the network paying a license fee and broadcasting it without further expense for its subscribers].

“That was one of the reasons it took so long to get the deal done, but I think the fans will react positively to this,” said Loeffler, after Golovkin’s October 2015 pay-per-view knockout of fellow champion David Lemieux had fewer than 200,000 buys.

Loeffler said that if his new cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk of Ukraine performs well Saturday night at the Forum, he could also be placed on the March 18 card. Although Jacobs is from Brooklyn, which offers Barclays Center, Loeffler said he preferred to place the bout with his partners, Madison Square Garden and HBO.

Loeffler had talks with Alvarez promoter Eric Gomez for the Golovkin-Alvarez bout at this week’s WBC convention in Florida, and said they’ll meet again Saturday night.

“We also have an offer to go to Kazakhstan in a 38,000-seat soccer stadium. It’s a major offer, but no one is overlooking Danny Jacobs,” Loeffler said.