WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (23-0, 12 KOs) would be willing to take less money if IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “Triple G” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) were willing to travel to the UK to fight him over there in his own home territory for a unification fight in April.
Golovkin and his management are the ones that really want the fight with Saunders, as they want to pick up another title so that they can have a chance to unify all the belts. It seems less important to Saunders to unify the titles. He just won the WBO belt in beating Andy Lee last December, and he wants to hold onto his belt as long as possible and make some good defenses of his title.
“I will fight him but I would like it to be in England and if they can do that I would take a bit less, but they have to give me something,” Saunders said to ESPN.com.
There has been an offer made to Saunders from Golovkin’s management. It’s said to be from $3.2 million to $4 million. It’s unclear how accurate the information is about the offer. Whatever the case, it wasn’t a big enough offer to bowl Saunders over and make him want to agree to the fight. Never the les, it’s good news that Saunders would be willing to take less money if Golovkin were willing to travel to England to fight him.
“They’ve got to pay me more money than I would get for the Chris Eubank Jr rematch,” Saunders said.
Saunders has been negative to the idea of a rematch with Eubank Jr., so it’s difficult to understand why he’s bringing him up. The reality is that Saunders doesn’t have anyone that will give him the payday that he’d get in a fight against Golovkin. If he stands firm about not wanting to fight Eubank Jr. until he earns a rematch, then Lee is probably Saunders’ best bet for a nice payday. That’s a risky fight for Saunders, and he could very well lose. Saunders would have lost to Lee last December if he didn’t knock him down twice in the 3rd round.
The money that Saunders would get in a rematch with Lee wouldn’t likely be as good as the money he would get for a fight against Golovkin. Saunders’ chance of winning the rematch against Lee would obviously be good, but I think he still loses the fight and winds up kicking himself for not taking the bigger payday against Golovkin.