Gennady Golovkin 'Happy' To Get Respect As Canelo Alvarez Rematch Is Confirmed

The highly-anticipated middleweight title rematch between Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez is officially confirmed to take place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Sept. 15.

However, the negotiations were not without drama as Golden Boy Promotions issued Golovkin a firm deadline of Wednesday 12 p.m. PDT (3 p.m. EDT) to accept their offer, otherwise they would pursue a fight with Daniel Jacobs.

After the initial proposed offer that would see Canelo have a 65-35 split of the event, Golden Boy upped their offer to "GGG" to a 57½-42½ split after the latter demanded a 50-50 split.

Golovkin's reasoning was first and foremost, he was the champion, holding the World Boxing Association, World Boxing Council and International Boxing Organization middleweight titles. Second, he felt he deserved it after the concessions he had to make in the first fight as well as Canelo's failed drug tests in February that saw their scheduled May rematch get called off.

Despite the improved purse split offer, Golovkin surprisingly rejected Golden Boy's final offer leading to the belief the fight was officially off. According to ESPN, though, both parties came up with a last-ditch idea that convinced the unbeaten Kazakh to accept the deal. The terms of the agreement are not known at this point.

"Gennady stuck to his guns," Golovkin's promoter Tom Loeffler said. "He always wanted the Canelo rematch, but at the same time, he wanted the respect as the champion, especially with what happened with the May 5 cancellation. We figured out a way to get it done. After the fight was dead, we figured out a way to resuscitate it. They were moving on and we were moving on. I can't go into the details, but Gennady is satisfied with the deal. Both fighters were stuck and we needed one of our partners to get involved and the MGM did. That's how the deal was saved. We came up with the solution."

"Gennady is happy he is getting the respect, and I'm happy we're able to participate in the biggest fight in the sport of boxing. This goes to Gennady's legacy. It's a huge fight for both guys. I think it's going to be a much bigger promotion than first time out," Loeffler added.

Their first fight in September resulted in a controversial split-decision draw as many in the boxing world felt Golovkin edged the contest. In terms of revenue though, the fight was a huge success as it generated 1.3 million pay-per-view buys, despite Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor's lucrative fight taking place the previous month, as well as the third-biggest in boxing history with $27 million.

The rematch is expected to do even better figures with Golovkin projected to earn more than a $40 million payday after the first fight saw Canelo have the lion share of event revenue in a 70-30 split.