Gennady Golovkin and Daniel Jacobs, Golovkin's biggest potential opponent not named Canelo Alvarez, have been trying to negotiate a fight. It doesn't look like it will take place in 2016.
While the two sides have been trying to make a fight official, roadblock after roadblock occured, and it looks like a fight between the two middleweight champions will take place in 2017. The fight was targeted for Madison Square Garden in New York on December 10.
Golovkin's promoter Tom Loeffler told ESPN that the purse split battle between the two champions took too long to resolve and that it's now too late to hold a fight on Dec. 10.
"Once the WBA made their ruling to uphold their standard split, it became just a matter of still talking to Al and trying to finalize a deal, but it's just too late now for the fight to be on Dec. 10," Loeffler said. "We had Madison Square Garden on hold, and they've been a good partner to us, so I don't like having to leave them with an open Saturday night. HBO also was ready to go, but we are going to push it back into early 2017."
Jacobs was looking at splitting the purse money at 60-40 in favor of Golovkin. When WBA super and regular champions negotiate a fight, the purse split is typically 75-25 in favor of the super champion. The WBA recently announced that the purse split will remain at 75-25 in favor of Golovkin.
After Golovkin easily beat Kell Brook last month, the WBA ordered it's two middleweight champions to fight one another. The two sides have been negotiating a fight for weeks, but now that the fight won't happen until early 2017, there's no guarantee that it will take place at Madison Square Garden.
HBO, whom Golovkin is under contract with, had December 10 reserved for him, but it wil most likely broadcast whatever date a GGG-Jacobs fight is to occur.
