Gennady Golovkin could soon be following Canelo Alvarez to DAZN.
Ring Magazine’s Mike Coppinger reported on Tuesday evening that Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler is in deep discussion with DAZN executives to sign him to a deal before the former unified middleweight champion returns to action next spring. This comes on the back of the on-demand sports streaming service, which is available in seven countries (Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Austria, Canada, and most recently the United States for $9.99 per month), signing current #1 middleweight Canelo Alvarez to a 10-fight, $350 million deal, with his December bout vs. Rocky Fielding expected to earn him at least $15 million in a separate one-off agreement.
The 36-year-old Golovkin (38-1-1, 34 KOs) lost to Canelo by majority decision in their highly entertaining September rematch in Las Vegas. The fight generated 1.1 million pay-per-view buys, fewer than the 1.3 million from their controversial split draw in September 2017. Both men’s HBO contracts expired, and shortly thereafter it was confirmed that HBO would step aside from live boxing programming at the end of 2018.
Initially, Loeffler preferred for Golovkin to have some flexibility to compete on various networks on a fight-by-fight basis, but recent events have only increased DAZN’s leverage.
Japanese star Ryota Murata, co-promoted by Top Rank and featured on ESPN/ESPN+ in recent bouts, was thought to be a lucrative matchup for Golovkin at the Tokyo Dome, but Murata suffered an upset loss to Rob Brant on October 20th, losing his WBA “regular” title in the process. That same night, Demetrius Andrade won the vacant WBO title vs. Walter Kautondokwa, after Billy Joe Saunders vacated his belt when he failed a drug test for a title defense vs. Andrade. Last weekend, Daniel Jacobs narrowly beat Sergiy Derevyanchenko for the IBF crown (after GGG was stripped when he didn’t fight Derevyanchenko, the IBF’s mandatory challenger).
Andrade is promoted by Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing USA, which has an exclusive agreement with DAZN, while Jacobs is expected to also re-sign with Matchroom and join DAZN in hopes of landing a Canelo fight in May 2019. Alvarez obviously has the belts formerly in Golovkin’s possession, so that means all four major world middleweight titles are likely to belong to DAZN fighters. Outside of Jermall Charlo, the best options for GGG are all on DAZN, including a possible trilogy with Alvarez, and this time it would not be on pay-per-view.
There’s no word on whether or not talks to bring in Golovkin would also include a packaged deal to showcase Loeffler’s other fighters, including Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez and Cecilia Braekhus. Loeffler is also the creator of the “SuperFly” series, which showcases the top boxers in the flyweight and super-flyweight divisions.
If Golovkin does sign with DAZN, they would arguably have five of the top-ten consensus pound-for-pound boxers on their platform, alongside Canelo, undisputed cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk, Japanese sensation Naoya Inoue (who’s in the World Boxing Super Series semifinals), and unified heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua.