We learned this week that the negotiations between middleweight champions Gennady Golovkin and Daniel Jacobs failed to produce a deal before the WBA’s deadline last Wednesday. The sanctioning body has now set a purse bid date on December 19 of this month in 10 days from now in Panama at the World Boxing Association’s headquarters.
Whether the Golovkin-Jacobs fight will take place may depend on the outside of the purse bid, but it might also depend on whether a deal is reached before the purse bid. Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler and Jacobs’ manager Al Haymon are still working on a deal. They can and likely will continue to negotiate up until the time of the purse.
What happens if they don’t reach a deal is the magic question. If it goes to a purse bid, the split of the revenue will be 75/25 in Golovkin’s favor. That’s far less than what Jacobs’ management wants for him. The fight becomes less desirable if Jacobs aren’t going to get a big payday. For that reason, it might be reasonable to assume that Jacobs’ side could pull out of the fight if the money isn’t going to be worth it.
Jacobs isn’t going to get the kind of money fighting other guys that he’d get against Golovkin. If Jacobs walks away from the fight, then there’s really not a lot of options for him to take to get good paydays. If the WBA takes the title from Jacobs for choosing not to fight Golovkin, then that could be a problem as well. Jacobs would go back to being a contender and would need to work his way to a title shot against Golovkin or WBO champion Billy Joe Saunders.
Jacobs and his manager Al Haymon’s best chance for a big payday for the Golovkin fight is if they reach a deal before it goes to a purse bid, because if it does go to a purse bid than the only thing they’re getting is the 75/25 split, and that’s not good.
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