(Photo/Courtesy Sumio Yamada) By Dan Ambrose: WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (29-0, 26 KO’s) will be back in the ring in two months on April 26th to fight one of three possible opponents on HBO in a fight that will be staged at Madison Square Garden in New York, in the U.S. Earlier today, Golovkin destroyed #12 WBA Osumanau Adama (22-4, 16 KO’s) in a 7th round TKO in a kind of a stay busy fight for Golovkin at the Salle des etoiles, Monte Carlo, Monaco. Golovkin toyed with the 33-year-old Adama, dropping him three times before knocking him out in the 7th round.
Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions said this via Fightnews “Right now we have offers out to three HBO approved fighters for April 26th at Madison Square Garden and we look forward to returning to New York City with Gennady.”
Two of the opponents are James Kirkland and Daniel Geale. Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said he got an e-mail from Loeffler about matching Golovkin vs. former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. for a fight, and Chavez Jr. likes the idea, according to Hustleboss. However, that fight can’t take place until July, so Chavez Jr. isn’t one of the three options for Golovkin. The likely third option is #1 WBA Martin Murray from the UK. He’s not well known in the U.S and not as interesting as Kirkland as an opponent for Golovkin.
Golovkin made it look too easy in beating Adama, and that’s not surprising given that Adama is a fringe contender and not a highly ranked guy. Golovkin took some criticism from fans for being too deliberate and easy to hit. But Golovkin had no choice but to leave himself open to getting hit when he made the conscious decision to go for the knockout starting in the 5th. You could see that Golovkin’s game changed in that round from being defensive to being much more offensive. Golovkin seemed to decide at that point he was going to kick it into another gear to shoot for the KO.
Adama landed some hard punches in the 5th, but after taking a barrage of hard shots in the 2nd half of the round, Adama was essentially finished for the fight. In the 6th and 7th, it was all Golovkin with him nailing a reeling Adama with shot after shot. The fight was similar in a way to Golovkin’s win over Gabriel Rosado last year in which Golovkin took some shots from Rosado in the 5th round when Golovkin decided to go for the knockout. After the 5th round, Golovkin hurt Rosado at the start of the 6th and it turned into a full scale retreat by Rosado from that point until the mismatch was halted in the 7th.
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