GGG-Jacobs Set For March 18th…On PPV
By: Sean Crose
First, the good news. Middleweight kingpin Gennady Golovkin will be facing middleweight powerhouse Daniel Jacobs next March 18th at Madison Square Garden in New York. This after negotiations which seemed to drag on forever. Indeed, the fight was originally supposed to occur this month, but – this being boxing – things moved at the pace of a snail going in reverse. To be sure, there were those who were starting to feel the match might not happen after all. Now, however, fans can breath a sigh of relief, for Golovkin is finally getting to face an opponent who could prove to be a challenge.
The flip side of this shiny coin, of course, is that the bout is going to take place on pay per view. That’s right, pay per view. Make no mistake about it, GGG-Jacobs is a big fight, it’s a legitimate one, too. That, however, does not make a bout pay per view worthy. At least it didn’t used to. Today, however, all bets seem to be off. HBO, under whose banner the fight will take place, once put on the Tyson-Holmes heavyweight title fight free for subscribers. Those days are long gone. Today we are told the network has budget issues. Needless to say, fans are paying for it.
Or not.
For fans are actually turning away from pay per view these days…and it’s doubtful GGG-Jacobs is going to break that trend. Indeed, Golovkin’s last fight – a huge affair against Britain’s Kell Brook – was on HBO. So was the Kovalev-Hopkins fight of just a few years back. Subscribers and boxing nuts are having a hard time accepting the fact that HBO is now the place for tuneups and low level matches. The fact that HBO hasn’t been too open about it’s recent boxing issues hasn’t exactly endeared it to fans, either. There have even been whispers that HBO is getting out of the boxing business – though it’s easy to see that assertion as being something of a stretch.
One fight that fans will indeed be willing to see on pay per view is a potential GGG fight with Canelo Alvarez. That particular pairing seems to be coming next fall, provided neither man loses in the interval. Canelo may fight Julio Caesar Chavez junior in what would surely prove to be a cash cow. By taking on Jacobs, however, GGG is arguably facing the more daunting challenge. To be sure, some might go so far as to say Jacobs may prove to be more of a challenge for Golovkin than Canelo might be.