Hopes of a Gennady Golovkin-Julio Cesar Chavez bout beginning to fizzle
The planned July 12 pay-per-view bout between Gennady Golovkin and Julio Cesar Chavez is beginning to look less and less likely, as Golovkin promoter Tom Loeffler of K2 said he can wait no more for Chavez to sign a deal for the fight.
Golovkin signed for the bout already, which is planned to be contested at super middleweight in Los Angeles on HBO Pay-Per-View. Chavez, however, has yet to sign a deal because he is not prepared to sign an extension with Top Rank at the same time.
Loeffler told Yahoo Sports that he planned to discuss Golovkin's options with HBO officials on Monday. He said he'll leave the door open for Chavez if Chavez signs soon, but he's not willing to put Golovkin's future on hold any more and potentially miss out on a July fight. Loeffler said Golovkin, the WBA middleweight champion, would make a 160-pound title defense if he didn't face Chavez.
The move to super middleweight was only to accommodate a fight with Chavez.
Loeffler said he spoke with Top Rank CEO Bob Arum and told him that he was going to look at other options. WBO middleweight champion Peter Quillin has been talked about for a long time as a potential Golovkin opponent. In addition to Quillin, top contender Daniel Jacobs is also a logical choice and among the leading candidates.
HBO hasn't approved either as opponents, and because both are with Golden Boy and HBO doesn't do business with Golden Boy, it could be difficult to finalize. But Golovkin is one of the jewels of the HBO stable and it would want a top opponent for him.
"I'm going to talk with HBO [on Monday] and we'll see which opponents make the most sense," Loeffler said. "If Bob is able to get something done with Chavez and we haven't finalized anything else, then we'll do that. We're just going to start the process of finding the best available opponent for Gennady to make certain that he fights in July. HBO has significantly stepped up its financial commitments and they're hold a July date for us, so we think we can get a pretty good fight together.
"I told Bob we need to move forward and not jeopardize things for July."
Loeffler said if Golovkin makes a middleweight title defense, it most likely would be in New York. He said he has had discussions with Richard Sturm of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and said Sturm expressed interest in having Golovkin fight in Las Vegas. That, though, isn't expected to happen for the summer.
