We expected to have a fight by now.
All signs pointed to Billy Joe Saunders as the logical next step for Gennady Golovkin after his most recent title defence.
In the wake of his unanimous decision victory over Daniel Jacobs in Madison Square Garden, the win which ended Golovkin’s 23-fight knockout streak, the Kazakh fighter announced a unification bout with WBO middleweight champion Saunders as his “dream fight.”
Makes sense https://t.co/M3Aczk0rTA
— JOE (@JOE_co_uk) March 20, 2017
Saunders has gone all-out in his attempts to get that fight, which would be the Brit’s most high-profile to date, including referring to Golovkin as “a little fucking minge”, setting a deadline for GGG to accept the fight and sporting the below t-shirt which was sent to him by a fan.
https://twitter.com/bjsaunders_/status/848875057984274433?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.joe.co.uk%2Fsport%2Fbilly-joe-saunders-has-a-brand-new-t-shirt-and-he-hopes-it-goads-ggg-into-accepting-unification-bout-119964
But there seems to be little in the way of response from Golovkin, despite suggestions that a provisional date of June 10 was set for the unification fight.
And Saunders’ promoter, Frank Warren, has since explained what’s taking so long for the deal to get over the line as he revealed that Golovkin’s camp is claiming that their fighter is injured.
“At the moment they’re saying Golovkin is injured,” Warren told IFL TV. “So we’ll see where this is going.
“As far as I’m concerned we’ve agreed to terms, so much so that we made an interim fight, we paid a guy to step aside to enable it all happen. We’ve done all we can to deliver that fight.
“Bill deserves it. He’s been let down by, dare I say, Eubank. All that sodding around with him.
“One thing about Bill, he’s got his pen in his inside pocket. He’ll sign to fight anybody. That’s never been a problem with him. The one thing about Billy Joe Saunders, you’ve never had him saying he’s not going to fight. He’s the guy who always wants to fight.
“We’re not going to know until after May 6 (date of Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez vs. Julio César Chávez Jr) what’s going to happen. It’s all up in the air at the moment and we’re trying to resolve it.”
