Business deals done, Gennady Golovkin focused on besting Daniel Jacobs

Tom Loeffler is an optimist. He’s a cup half-full, eggs sunny-side-up kind of a guy. It’s how he’s survived 26 years in the most sleazy, cutthroat business in sports with scores of friends and acquaintances and no known enemies.

He promotes IBF-WBA-WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, who is hours away from the biggest fight of his career. Golovkin will meet Daniel Jacobs, also a WBA middleweight champion thanks to the audacity and outright greed of the sanctioning body, on Saturday in front of what is expected to be a sell-out crowd at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

Life couldn’t be much better for Loeffler. Golovkin is 36-0 with 33 knockouts and better than a 6-1 favorite to defeat Jacobs. He’s landed a slew of big deals for the burgeoning superstar from Kazakhstan, who only a few years ago couldn’t speak English.

The ring mat looks like a NASCAR driver’s uniform. Golovkin was recently named brand ambassador for Hublot, the high-end watch company, and it has a giant logo in the center of the ring. Chivas, Tecate, the eighth installment in the “Fast & Furious” movie series, Madison Square Garden, Tsesnabank, Expo 2017 and Capital Holdings are also sponsoring Golovkin and have signage on the ring mat.

Golovkin will also wear a patch on his trunks for Bijan, a high-end retailer located on Rodeo Drive in Hollywood.

A crowd of around 20,000 is expected, and if it’s not a sell-out, it will be very close. Golovkin sold out his first appearance in The Garden in 2015, when he defeated David Lemiuex after getting a visit from then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in his locker room before the bout.

“You hear so many fighters talk about how important it is to just fight in The Garden, and you hear them call it ‘The Mecca’ and this and that, but Gennady has a chance to sell the place out twice,” Loeffler said, the wonderment evident in his voice. “How many guys can say they did that?”

It’s a fantastic match that figures to provide great action. Combined, the fighters are 68-1 with 62 knockouts. Golovkin knows it could be bombs away when the bell rings.

“Somebody’s getting knocked out,” he said. When a reporter chuckled, Golovkin emphasized, “No, really. Someone is getting knocked out.”

A win would be a major step toward the super match against Canelo Alvarez that fans and media have wanted for at least 18 months.

With all that is riding on the event, though, neither Loeffler nor Golovkin act as if they have a care in the world.

Business-wise, they got about the worst possible date they could. After Golovkin defeated Kell Brook in September, the goal was to face Jacobs on HBO in either the last week of November or in December.

A deal wasn’t reached with Jacobs’ team in time to put the show on in December, and so the fight got pushed to Saturday. Worse, as HBO Sports so regularly does these days, it was taken off the network and pushed onto pay-per-view.

Now, they’re asking $64.95 for the privilege of watching the fight, which comes on the third day and first weekend of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, which, of course, fans can watch for free.

Perhaps the only date that would have been worse for Golovkin-Jacobs would have been Super Bowl Sunday, but if it bothers the fighters, neither seem to care.

“You’re always up against something else,” Loeffler said. “The last time we fought in The Garden, I think it was the Cubs and the Mets playing in a playoff game. We just try to do our thing. People are really getting excited about Gennady and we hear from so many people who can’t wait to see him.”

Golovkin just might be the best fighter in the world, though Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez, who fights in the co-main event on Saturday, has a case to make for that, as well.

Golovkin doesn’t have the wide fan base that Floyd Mayweather had, but his fans are as passionate as any in boxing.

“People love Gennady, because he gives them what they want,” his trainer, Abel Sanchez, said. “He gets in there and he fights. He’s exciting. He’s not running around. He’s trying to hurt guys.”

Golovkin is an engaging, charismatic man who smiles easily and often. He’s getting much better at speaking English, but he still prefers to express himself with his fists.

He acknowledges the test he’ll face on Saturday, and says of Jacobs, “Good boxer; very good boxer.”

It’s at this moment, as he talks about the fight, that his lighthearted nature changes. Now is when he’s like a silent assassin.

He’ll go into the ring fully aware of his job: To win, and win impressively, to preserve what would be a career-high payday to fight Alvarez. Much of his fate, regardless of how he looks, rests in the hands of Alvarez promoter Oscar De La Hoya, who clearly hasn’t been eager to make the fight.

It would be no shock if De La Hoya sometime in the next week mentions Lemieux as a potential fall opponent for Alvarez. Lemieux is on Golden Boy’s roster, so De La Hoya would control both sides in an Alvarez-Lemieux fight, and Lemieux just had a monstrous knockout on HBO last week of Curtis Stevens.

Golovkin has talked at length about Alvarez over the last few years, and he’s getting tired of it. When Alvarez’s name comes up, he sighs and brushes it off.

“This is serious business, no joke,” he says of the fight with Jacobs. “We’ll talk later. The fight is first, [and is] most important.”

The pay-per-view numbers don’t figure to be large, and Loeffler might do back flips if he gets over 200,000.

But the fight figures to be excellent, continuing an encouraging recent trend. Jacobs is the best opponent of Golovkin’s career. Advertisers came out in big numbers to support Golovkin. A mega-fight is tantalizingly close.

Golovkin is unbothered by all the hullabaloo and doesn’t seem caught up in the moment.

“It’s a fight,” he said. “I’ve done this a long time. I know my job.”

Normally, a promoter is manic the last 48 hours before a major event, but at least outwardly, Loeffler is calm.

He knows he and Golovkin manager Oleg Hermann have done all they can do, and that the table is set.

“You know, it’s in Gennady’s hands now,” Loeffler said. “That’s a pretty good place to be.”