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Golovkin’s promoter discusses $1 million weight penalty for Chavez Jr.

Fighters Network
28
Mar

Calling his fighter "a small middleweight," promoter Tom Loeffler justified the $1 million penalty that is in place for the non-title, 168-pound bout between WBA 160-pound beltholder Gennady Golovkin and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., slated for July 19 at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif.

Top Rank Promotions CEO Bob Arum informed RingTV.com of the development in an earlier report.

"That was one of the conditions. We agreed to come to 168 pounds with no catchweight and the penalty is a million dollars if either fighter doesn't make the weight," said Loeffler of K2 Promotions, which handles Golovkin. "That's important because if we have a contracted weight of 168, and if Gennady's going to come up to 168 pounds, that the fighters make the weight."

Chavez (48-1-1, 32 knockouts) is coming off consecutive unanimous decisions over Bryan Vera, the rematch being a super middleweight bout on March 1. Their first fight in September was contested at a 173-pound catchweight after a deal was reached in the wake of Chavez's failure to make the originally contracted super middleweight limit of 168.



"We have had a rash of situations with fighters recently blowing through the contracted weight and this is something that, with a million dollar penalty, it assures that there is an incentive for neither fighter to miss the weight," said Loeffler.

"Gennady is a small middleweight in the first place and he has an easy time making 160 pounds. But to make this fight a bigger fight, instead of haggling over some type of catchweight, we figured that it made the most sense to fight at 168 pounds and that was really one of the conditions for the Chavez fight — to have Gennady fight him at 168 pounds."

Golovkin (29-0, 26 KOs) is coming off last month's seventh-round stoppage of Osumanu Adama, representing his 16th straight knockout victory.

Golovkin pulled out of a scheduled April 26 defense against Andy Lee due to the death of his father, Gennady Ivanovich Golovkin, who passed as the result of a heart attack on February 18. Golovkin immediately began observing a period of mourning, a tradition in his culture, to spend time with his family in his native Kazakhstan.

Loeffler said he expects Golovkin to be in attendance at the April 12 rematch between WBO 147-pound beltholder Tim Bradley and Manny Pacquiao at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

Both Arum, in an earlier interview with RingTV.com, and Loeffler, in one with Fighthype.com,  indicated that Golovkin-Chavez would be on HBO Pay Per View.

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