By Norm Frauenheim-
April 22, 2016 , Los Angeles, Ca. — Boxing Superstar and Unified World Middleweight Champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, 34-0 (31KO’s) and Undefeated Mandatory Challenger Dominic Wade, 18-0 (12KO’s) weigh in Friday in Los Angeles, California.
Boxing Superstar and Undefeated, Unified World Middleweight Champion Gennady, “GGG” Golovkin, 34-0 (31KO’s) will defend his titles (WBA, IBF, IBO and WBC “Interim’) against Undefeated Mandatory Challenger Dominic Wade, 18-0 (12KO’s) on Saturday, April 23 at the Fabulous Forum in the main event at UNDEFEATED.
Co-featured will be Consensus #1 Pound-For-Pound Fighter and WBC Flyweight World Champion Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez, 44-0 (38KO’s) battling World Ranked Contender McWilliams Arroyo, 16-2 (14KO’s) of Puerto Rico.
Both bouts will be televised Live on HBO World Championship Boxing® beginning at 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT.
Tickets for UNDEFEATED, priced at $400, $300, $200, $100, $60 and $30, are now on sale through Ticketmaster (Ticketmaster.com, 1-800-745-3000) and the Forum Box Office.
Golovkin vs. Wade is promoted by K2 Promotions, GGG Promotions and in association with TGB Promotions. Gonzalez vs. McWilliams is presented by K2 Promotions in association with Teiken Promotions and PR Best Boxing Promotions.
It’s a many-sided fight, loaded with intrigue and potential for explosive surprises at just about every level. But will Gennady Golovkin-Danny Jacobs Saturday night sell?
It’s an HBO pay-per-view fight screaming for attention during the first week of the NCAA basketball tournament.
Although already perilously close to joining boxing at the sporting fringe from November through February, college basketball still comes off the edge and squarely into the spotlight for three weeks from mid March to early April.
It’s a spring rite, an annual fast break full of moms and pops with brackets in one hand and a few dollars to wager in the other. Office pools are everywhere and that means everybody is watching, especially during the first couple of rounds when big upsets are likely.
If you’ve ever been in Las Vegas for a fight during the first week of the NCCA tournament, you know what I’m talking about. The books are jammed. Lines stretch from the betting windows almost out on to The Strip with people wanting to bet on the next Cinderella. A very good fight might be at the casino’s arena that Saturday night. But nobody knows about it.
In America’s virtual village, Golovkin-Jacobs, at New York’s Madison Square Garden, is that fight. Looks to be good, could be great. Jacobs is a terrific story. He beat cancer and he’s been beating everybody in front of him ever since.
Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) has been that force of nature, an unbeaten and unstoppable middleweight who hopes to pound out a legend the equal of any in a division with a rich history. His bout against Jacobs has been called a steppingstone to a bigger confrontation with Canelo Alvarez. Yet, Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) is a challenge – perhaps GGG’s biggest ever as he approaches another birthday. He’ll be 35 on April 8.
If the fight had been in mid-February or mid-April, it would have had a better chance at a solid PPV number. In an era of declining expectations, solid would mean anything from, say, 250,000 to 300,000. GGG’s pay-per-view sample is too small to judge. He has fought on PPV only once, against David Lemieux in October, 2015 in an HBO telecast that did a reported 150,000.
With the Canelo showdown still on the horizon and the compelling Jacobs story as part of Saturday’s promotion, there’s more reason to watch. But it happens on a day with second-round NCAA tournament games on CBS, TNT and TBS scheduled from noon (ET) to 9:30 p.m. (ET) and all without a PPV price tag.
The day’s final tournament game is scheduled a half-hour after the start of the PPV telecast of a card that includes pound-for-pound king and junior-bantamweight Roman Gonzalez (46-0, 38 KOs) against Srisaket Sor Rungvisai (41-4-1, 38 KOs).
It’s a good card. Maybe great. On a day full of basketball for free, however, is it worth $54.99 for the standard telecast, $64.99 for high-def? After wall-to-wall hoops, I’m guessing a lot of casual fans will just pass and wait for the replay.
That’s unfortunate, especially for the under-appreciated GGG, Jacobs and Gonzalez.
GGG, who sells out arenas, draws a solid audience in non-PPV bouts. His victory over Kell Brook in September drew 843,000 for a London bout that happened earlier in the day in the U.S. His April victory over Dominic Wade at The Forum in Inglewood, Calif., posted a biggie, 1.34 million.
Let’s assume Golovkin does the expected and beats Jacobs. If the victory is spectacular, yet the PPV number isn’t, it creates a potential complication for him in negotiations with Canelo, whose May 6 bout with fellow Mexican Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. could be PPV blockbuster. Let’s assume Canelo does the expected and beats Chavez Jr., yet with a PPV number three to four times bigger than GGG’s number against Jacobs.
What should be a 50-50 fight, won’t be in terms of what Canelo says he’s worth. He’ll ask for the lion’s share of a 60-40 or 55-45 split. GGG, who has been the consensus champ at 160, wouldn’t be the first fighter to be insulted by that kind of proposal. He also wouldn’t be the first to walk away from the table, further delaying a fight the business desperately needs.
That begs a question: On a weekend dominated by attention on the NCAA tournament, why-oh-why is GGG-Jacobs on pay-per-view? That answer is a slam-dunk.
