By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn doesn’t like the idea of his fighter middleweight contender Darren Barker (24-1, 15 KO’s) facing WBA World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (25-0, 22 KO’s) for his title unless there’s absolutely no other options available for the 30-year-old Barker to fight for a world title in 2013.
Presently, Hearn believes there’s a chance for Barker to fight either IBF champion Daniel Geale or WBO champ Peter Quillin for their titles, so it won’t be necessary for Barker to fight Golovkin.
Hearn told thaboxingvoice.com “There’s no value in a fight against Golovkin. It’s not a huge fight…If that’s the only world championship fight presenting itself then we’ll take it.”
Hearn sees Golovkin as being too strong and too dangerous for Barker to take that fight, and that’s why he’s not particularly excited about making the fight happen.
First off, I don’t know that Quillin and/or Geale are going to come beating down Hearns’ door to try and get Barker for one of their title defenses because there’s no real upside to them fighting Barker. He’s not a popular fighter in the United States, and looked awful when he was given a shot against Sergio Martinez in 2011.
Barker has fought only once since then, beating British fighter Kerry Hope by 4th round TKO last December.
Besides Quillen and Geale, Hearn would like to match Barker against Matthew Macklin, Brian Vera or Sergio Mora. I think Vera or Mora are realistic options for Barker, but Geale, Quillin and Macklin are definitely not doable fights because they have other targets they’re looking at.
Macklin could fight Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. this year, and he’s been calling out Geale. Macklin isn’t likely going to want to accept a smaller fight against Barker if he has a chance at getting a bigger money fight.
Barker has a fight scheduled next month on March 9th at the Wembley Arena, Wembley, in London, United Kingdom. Hearn still hasn’t found anyone to fill that date, which probably means he’s going to wind up facing an unknown domestic level fodder opponent.
Comments are closed.