By Erik Schmidt: Former 2004 Olympic Silver Medalist for Kazakhstan, Gennady Golovkin (17-0, 14 KO’s) will be facing American Ishe Smith (21-4, 9 KO’s) on November 21st in a 12 round title bout at the Sparkassen Arena, Kiel, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Golovkin, 27, the World Boxing Organization Inter-Continental middleweight champion, will be making a big step up competition by facing the 31-year-old defensive wizard Smith. Golovkin is ranked number #1 in both the WBO and World Boxing Council, and number #2 in the WBA and #8 in the IBF, despite having fought largely European fighters in Germany.

Golovkin must win to keep stay in position for a title shot against WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik or WBA champion Felix Sturm. Golovkin looked good in his last fight, a 2nd round knockout of Brazilian John Anderson Carvalho in July. Golovkin, 5’10”, knocked Carvalho down with a big left to the body followed by a searing right to the head in the 2nd round of their contest.

In Golovkin’s other bouts, he’s shown explosive power at times. He fights in a slow methodical manner, putting his opponents sleep with moderately hard shots and then opens up with huge bursts of powerful combinations that often catches his opponents off guard. In perhaps his toughest fight of his three year pro career, Golovkin took out Anthony Greenridge in a 5th round stoppage in April 2009. Golovkin took a tough Greenridge out with a hard left to the midsection in the 5th round. In the prior rounds, Greenridge had fought Golovkin very tough, using his jab and putting together nice combinations. However, like in most of his other bouts, Golovkin turned up his offense a couple of notches and took out Greenridge with hard shots in the 5th.

While fighting in the 2004 Olympics, Golovkin defeated Super Six tournament participant Andre Dirrell by a 23-18 score. However, Golovkin was defeated in his next match by the Gold Medal winner Russian Gaydarbek Gaydarbekov.

Smith, a former contestant in The Contender, is coming off a 10 round unanimous decision loss to middleweight prospect Daniel Jacobs in August. Smith showed flashes of power in the fight, but didn’t let his hands go enough to get the win. Oddly enough, Smith was the harder puncher of the two in the fight, even though Jacobs came into the fight with an impressive knockout record and a reputation for being a knockout artist.

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Also on the same card, 2008 Olympic heavyweight Gold Medalist for Russia Rakhim Chakhkiev (1-0, 1 KO’s) will be facing journeyman Denis Solomon (19-20, 2 KO’s) in a four round bout. Chakhkiev, 26, now fighting out of Germany as a cruiserweight, took out his first opponent of his pro career Tayar Mehmed in a 2nd round knockout on October 10th. Chakhkiev showed a lot of power and very heavy hands in that fight. He pounded Mehmed over and over again with heavy shots until finally knocking Mehmed to the canvas with a looping left to the head in the 2nd round. The bout was then stopped.

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Zsolt Erdei (30-0, 17 KO’s) is giving up his World Boxing Organization light heavyweight title to move up in weight to challenge WBC cruiserweight champion Giacobbe Fragomeni (26-1-1, 10 KO’s) for his title. Fragomeni, 40, captured the vacant WBC cruiserweight title with a win over Rudolf Kraj last year in October 2008 with an 8th round stoppage. In his first defense, Fragomeni fought to a 12 round draw with Krzysztof Wlodarczyk in May 2009. Unless Erdei has suddenly gotten really old over night, you have to figure that he’ll have enough left to defeat Fragomeni.

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Super middleweight contender Dimitri Sartison (25-1, 16 KO’s) will be fighting Stjepan Bozic (23-03, 14 KO’s ( for the vacant WBA super middleweight title on the same card. Sartison, 29, has won three consecutive fights since being stopped in the 12th round by Mikkel Kessler in June 2008.