By Allan Fox: WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golvkin will be defending his title against Marco Antonio Rubio on 10/18 in a fight televised by HBO from the StubHub Center in Carson, California. Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions wanted to get a big name like Miguel Cotto, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez or Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, but none of those fighters were options for the fight.
For Golovkin and K2, this is as good as it gets in terms of available opponents. Rubio fits their criteria for what they’re looking for given that the fights taking place in Southern California and K2 is looking to create new fans for Golovkin.
The other options available for Golovkin to fight were slim, and that’s the unfortunate part. Once Golovkin gets past Rubio, he doesn’t have anyone that is worthwhile for him to fight. He’s kind of stuck defending his title against whichever contender is interested in fighting him.
“I’m very excited to fight in California,” said Golovkin. “I always enjoy attending fights at the StubHub Center and look forward to a “Mexican Style” fight against Marco Antonio Rubio.”
Rubio has fought for world titles twice and come up short in losses to Chavez Jr and Kelly Pavlik. He’s given a good account of himself both times, but he lacked the talent to past those two fighters. Rubio has the power to KO Golovkin if there was nothing being thrown back at him, but that’s not going to be the case. Golovkin is going to be moving in and out and hammering Rubio with his best power shots.
Golovkin may attempt to impress the StubHub fans by standing in front of Rubio and fighting in what he calls the “Mexican style” of fighting that he learned from his trainer Abel Sanchez. That means we could see a lot of body punching from Golovkin in this fight.
Its unclear how well Rubio can take body shots. He did a good job against Chavez Jr in absorbing his body attack in 2012, but that was two years ago and Chavez Jr doesn’t hit quite as hard as Golovkin.
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