LAS VEGAS – There they sat Thursday, several feet apart, but so close to the night that they will finally be able to get their hands on each other again.
After more twists and turns than anyone can remember, Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin were just two days away from the high-profile fight that should have happened three years ago.
“I’m very happy to be here again,” Golovkin said during his final press conference at MGM Grand’s KA Theater. “Like, OK, like last time, four years ago, like a long time. Finally. Finally, right now, on Saturday night. I think this is the biggest day for boxing right now, you know, the biggest gift to you, to the fans, guys.”
The four-year wait since his rival beat him by majority decision in their rematch will have been worth it for Kazakhstan’s Golovkin.
The veteran middleweight champion will get his coveted chance to avenge the only loss of his 16-year pro career. Golovkin (42-1-1, 37 KOs) will also get a guarantee of at least $20 million to face Alvarez for the third time.
Alvarez (57-2-2, 39 KOs) is guaranteed more than double Golovkin, a purse believed to be $45 million, despite the Mexican superstar suffering a one-sided decision loss to the undefeated light heavyweight champion. of the WBA, Dmitry Bivol. in his last fight. The four-division champion ordered that kind of payday because Mexico’s Alvarez remains the most bankable boxing star in the United States.
Their star power, particularly together, is undeniable. They have created perhaps the most revered rivalry of the 20th century in boxing, at least comparable to that of Pacquiao-Marquez and Barrera-Morales.
Their promotional problem, unfortunately for DAZN and Matchroom Boxing, is that the four years that have passed between their second and third fights took away the momentum they built while engaging in two compelling and competitive middleweight title fights in a span of 12 months. in 2017 and 2018. .
The quintessential question for both fans, who must now pay $85 to watch, and DAZN, which has pledged an estimated $65 million in guarantees for Alvarez and Golovkin, will Canelo-Golovkin III be worth the wait?
Fans believe their money’s worth because Alvarez and Golovkin will likely produce another fan-friendly fight. Even at age 40, Golovkin’s granite chin, power and stiff jab should at least allow him to remain competitive with a significantly younger and stronger counterpuncher whose iron chin is also among his best attributes.
You have to wonder, though, how many of the fans who bought their first two pay-per-view fights, more than a million of them in each case, will spend another $85 to see Alvarez and Golovkin fight again, especially if they’re convinced that Golovkin is too old to really test Alvarez at this point. On the other hand, if the long line of fans that stretched inside the MGM Grand on Thursday for free admission to his news conference is any indication, perhaps more customers than skeptics suspect will buy this third Alvarez fight. and Golovkin.
However, there is a faction of fans who refuse to support DAZN’s pay-per-view model because they were promised elite fights for the price of their monthly subscription when the streaming service launched four years ago.
Had Alvarez and Golovkin fought for a third time in 2019, fans in the United States could have seen it on DAZN for its $9.99 monthly subscription fee. Three years later, it will cost them more than eight times as much to watch because DAZN executives finally admitted that even corporations with deep pockets can’t commit that much money to collateral and get it back without using the pay-per-view platform.
As for DAZN, it’s finally putting up the fight it relied on all along.
“Listen, there are fights and there are mega fights,” said Joe Markowski, executive vice president of DAZN, during the press conference. “I think everyone in this arena understands the magnitude of this fight. for DAZN, [it’s] the fight we’ve been trying to make for four years. Our history in the United States is wrapped up in this fight.”
Canelo-Golovkin III was one of his main marketing tools when this ambitious company broke into the boxing market by overspending on fighters and fights in its early days. DAZN has adopted more sensible spending practices over the past two years, but that didn’t stop its owner, Ukrainian billionaire Len Blavatnik, from approving the huge sums of money it took to get Alvarez back in the ring with Golovkin.
The prevailing opinion among boxing industry insiders is that this third fight will have to produce at least close to a million pay-per-view buys for DAZN to break even. And that’s probably only if ticket revenue comes close to the gate receipts from his fights in September 2017 (over $27 million) and September 2018 (over $23 million).
Ticket sales were somewhat slow leading up to this fight week, in part due to sky-high prices. Promoter Eddie Hearn is still hopeful that the event will fill T-Mobile Arena, which likely would have been a foregone conclusion had they fought in September 2019.
Alvarez defeated Daniel Jacobs in May 2019, just before moving up two weight classes and brutally knocking out Sergey Kovalev to win the WBO light heavyweight title nearly six months later. The Guadalajara native later became boxing’s fully unified super middleweight champion.
Golovkin, however, has fought just four times in the four years since Alvarez outpointed him in their rematch and has had some troublesome moments while working with DAZN, which signed him to a lucrative six-fight deal in March 2019.
Some frustrated fight fans feel that Alvarez simply waited for Golovkin to get old before agreeing to this third meeting. Alvarez insists he was ready to fight Golovkin a third time long before then, a claim Golovkin dismissed this week.
Regardless, they are finally here now, right on Mexican Independence Day weekend, just like their first two fights. Very soon, fans and DAZN decision makers will finally know if Canelo-Golovkin III was worth the wait.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
