By Dan Ambrose: Marco Antonio Rubio (59-6-1, 51 KOs) plans on spoiling WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin’s trip to California this Saturday by knocking him out in their fight on HBO Championship Boxing at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
Rubio believes he’s the hardest puncher that Golovkin has ever fought before in his 7-year pro career, and he could very well be correct about that. The biggest puncher that Golovkin is Curtis Stevens, and he failed to make it past the 8th round.
“This will be a night to remember, one of us is going to be knocked out. And I can tell you this, I’m coming prepared to knock him out,” Rubio said via RingTV.com.
It’s very likely that one of these two fighters will be knocked out. However, it’s probably going to be Rubio rather than Golovkin, because the Kazakhstan fighter has almost every advantage that you can imagine for this fight.
Rubio has some things going for him such as power, but Golovkin is a bigger puncher, and is considerably faster. Golovkin also younger with less ring wear. Rubio is 34, and he’s had a lot of fights. It doesn’t matter that Rubio has won most of them inside the distance, he’s still been involved in a lot of fights where he’s had to prepare for and take shots.
“I don’t know that I’m being overlooked, I just think that he’s [Golovkin] the hot ticket right now,” Rubio said. “But people will see another boxer with power in the ring with him.”
Rubio showed that he has a good chin in the past in fights against the likes Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, Kelly Pavlik and David Lemieux. But Pavlik was able to get him out of there in 9 rounds in their fight in 2009, and he showed that there is a limit to how much punishment Rubio is willing to take before he gives up.
If Golovkin is able to punish Rubio in the same way that Pavlik did then it’s quite possible we could see him quit on his stool rather than continuing to take punishment needlessly.
“I think his weaknesses are in his defense. He leaves himself open, which allows for a puncher like me to land,” Rubio said. “I don’t think he has fought anyone that hits as hard as I do or is at my level.”
Rubio has probably been in with someone that hits almost as hard as Golovkin in Lemieux and Pavlik, but he didn’t look all that great during stretches of those fights. Rubio was able to wear Lemieux down by taking his punishment for the first five rounds and then stop him in the 7th after he tired out. But that trick is unlikely to work for Rubio against Golovkin. I doubt he’s going to get tired of throwing punches like Lemieux did.
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