Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez will finally get it on September 15th but it so very nearly didn’t happen at all.

Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler admitted after the fight was announced last week that they were speaking to WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders about a unification.

Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya conceded they were looking at former champion Danny Jacobs as Canelo’s next foe.

But alas, a last-ditch attempt to make the fight by Golden Boy Promotions worked and the deal was done.

It turned out that it was Gennady Golovkin holding out and sticking to his principles got him what he wanted in the end.

Speaking to ESPN, Golovkin said:

“It was the principle of the matter, 45% for me, not 35 or 42.5, just 45. Good deal, very happy. My original demand was 50-50, but after some thought, I understood that 55-45 was a good deserving number for both of us and if it didn’t happen we were ready to move on. [Golden Boy] knew they would have a good deal either way. I was not going to go lower in percentage to make a deal.”

All in all it seems like a fair deal for both parties when you consider all factors.

It’s the biggest middleweight fight in boxing at the end of the day and both fighters need one another just as much as the other.

Sure, Canelo is the bigger name, so a slightly greater split to him seems fair – but there’s no bigger fight out there for him other than Golovkin so the increase for ‘GGG’ seems fair.

Now that all the talking is done and we have a fight, roll on September 15th.