By Dan Ambrose: Middleweight contender Curtis Stevens (25-3, 18 KO’s) has been talking a lot recently about how he’s not afraid of WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (27-0, 24 KO’s) as the two head towards their November 2nd fight on HBO at the Madison Square Garden Theater, in New York, New York, USA.
Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez expects Stevens to keep talking right up to the point where the two fighters step foot inside the ring. However, once they start trading punches, Sanchez feels that Stevens will be very afraid once he feels Golovkin’s power.
Sanchez said to RingTV “I expect Stevens to keep talking…but I also expect that as soon as Curtis gets hit with the first jab, he’ll be more scared than [Matthew] Macklin was. I think that it’s a short night for Gennady. I think that Curtis has talked himself into a bigger money fight by posturing.”
It’s not a good sign that Stevens was beaten by Jesse Brinkley just 5 fights ago, and it’s also not a good sign that Stevens had to struggle to defeat journeyman Derrick Findley last April. Stevens has a lot of knockouts recently, but he’s gotten those knockouts against poor opposition.
It would have been better had HBO required that Stevens beat at least one good contender before saying yes to a fight between him and Golovkin, because the way that Stevens got this fight was by beating inferior opposition instead of top tier guys.
Stevens is can punch hard, and he’s got a good left hook. His reach is very limited, and he’s not a big right hand puncher. He mostly looks for the left hook, and he does well if he can get close enough to land his short punches.
Golovkin has the kind of power and body attack that could make this an easy night. Golovkin has the better talent by far. The only thing that you can hope for in this fight is that Stevens can make a fight of it before getting stopped.
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