Tom Loeffler: “I think whoever wins Golovkin vs. Canelo really should be considered the best fighter in boxing”

Boxing Promoter, Tom Loeffler has a busy two weekends ahead of him as he has a triple header on HBO this Saturday, featuring Roman Gonzalez vs Srisaket Sor Rungvisai II and a week later the mega event with Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin. The two events are the best of the fall schedule and feature three of the top ten pound-for-pound fighters in the sport.

In part 1 of my “On The Ropes” boxing radio interview Tom Loeffler, I discuss with him the upcoming Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin event and the promotion for it. Tom talks about the road to fight and what he is expecting from the match up. Additionally, Loeffler speaks on this weekend’s Roman Gonzalez vs Srisaket Sor Rungvisai rematch and the undercard title bouts. Here is what Tom Loeffler had to say.

Jenna J: Gennady Golovkin vs Canelo Alvarez is now less than two weeks away, how do you feel about the fight as it gets closer?

Tom Loeffler: It’s kind of reaching a fever pitch right now. The fans have really been demanding this fight for the last two years, ever since Canelo won the WBC middleweight championship. This is the best match-up in boxing right now, the two best middleweight fighting each other, two of the best and most marketable fighters getting in the ring.

This fight encompasses an old school match-up, a throw back fight that we used to see when the best would fight the best, it’s definitely the best match up right now. With the ticket sales and the projected pay-per-view sales, everything is coming together for the fight.

Jenna J: At any point did you have any doubts that the fight would happen?

Tom Loeffler: We’ve been trying to get many different fight, so Canelo was no different. We tried to get Felix Sturm when ‘GGG’ was the mandatory for him, we tried to get Sergio Martinez when he was considered the best middleweight champion. We tried to get Miguel Cotto when he beat Martinez. The fans have just been wanting to see Golovkin in a big fight and it doesn’t get any bigger than this.

This is almost literally five days to his US debut when he fought on HBO on September 2012 and he’s now in literally the biggest fight in the sport of boxing, This is a thank you present for the fans and I think whoever wins on September 16th really should be considered the best and most marketable fighter in the sport of boxing.

Jenna J: Canelo was hesitant to take the fight for a while, why do you think now he’s taking the fight?

Tom Loeffler: When they vacated the title, Oscar and Goldenboy said they would fight in September 2017, they wanted to build the fight a little bit. There are some people that have some different theories on that, but however it happened, we’re just happy that the fight is happening now.

There have been some other fights that have taken over five years to make, so relative to that, this fight came together pretty quickly, especially after Gennady beat Danny Jacobs in Madison Square Garden and then Canelo beat Chavez. I think they are at the peak of their careers. They are both in their prime and this is the type of match up that the fans have been asking for.

Jenna J: This weekend Roman Gonzalez will be making his return to have a rematch with Srisaket Sor Rungvisai. Why did you guy want to go immediately for the rematch?

Tom Loeffler: The WBC ordered the rematch, it was a controversial fight the first time. It was definitely one of the leading candidates for fight of the year. Chocolatito got knocked down in the first round and then it seemed like he came back and won the majority of the later rounds.

It’s one of those rare fights that the WBC mandated and is definitely a fight that the fans want to see again. Since the first fight was so great, HBO has agreed to put it as the main event. I think this will be Chocolatito’s fifth or sixth time on HBO.

We’re also going to have the US debut of Naoya Inoue, and I’m getting the sense that this is similar to when Golovkin made his debut here in the US on HBO. A lot of the fans have heard of him but they haven’t actually seen him fight, so they are really looking forward to seeing him get in the ring here in LA.

Inoue will be fighting Antonio Nieves to defend his WBO title. The first fight of the triple header is Carlos Cuadras against Francisco Estrada, that’s a tremendous match up between two Mexican warriors and the winner of that fight will be the mandatory challenger for the winner of Chocolatito and Srisaket Sor Rungvisai. It’s going to be a great show, probably the best triple header we’ve seen in a long time.