By Dan Ambrose: Making his first defense of his World Boxing Association (WBA) middleweight title, champion Gennady Golovkin (20-0, 17 KO’s) will be facing #10 ranked WBA contender Kassim Ouma (27-1-1, 17 KO’s) on June 2nd at the Arena Roberto Duran in Panama City, Panama. This isn’t the fight that boxing fans wanted to see from Golovkin. Many of them were hoping he would face unbeaten interim WBA middleweight champion Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam instead for a battle between unbeaten middleweights.

Instead, the 29-year-old Golovkin has to settle for the 32-year-old Ouma, a former IBF junior middleweight champion, who has seen better days during his career. Ouma has lost five out of his last seven fights dating back to 2006. Why the WBA has Ouma ranked at number #10 after all those losses is really the big question. It seems unthinkable that a fighter with five defeats out of his last seven fights could be ranked in the top 15, but to have Ouma at number #10 is just mind boggling.

Ouma was beaten by Vanes Martirosyan by a 10 round decision last year. Before that, Ouma lost to Grabriel Rosado, Cornelius Bundradge, Saul Roman and Jermain Taylor all in the past five years. He was beaten by Roman Karmazin in 2005.

Golovkin is a former 2004 Silver Medalist from Kazakhstan. He hits very hard, and has wins over Lucian bute, Andy Lee, Yordanis Despaigne, Matvey Korobov,and Andre Dirrell in the amateur ranks. Golovkin has been fighting as a pro since 2006, but has been softly matched his entire five-year pro career. Ouma will be a significant step up for Golovkin and it will be interesting to see how he reacts to the jump in competition. Ouma is a decent fighter and Golovkin will have to show a better work rate than he’s been displaying in his fights. Ouma isn’t someone that Golovkin will likely knockout unless Golovkin’s sneaky punching power is better than I think it is.