Golovkin’s promoter compares him to Mike Tyson

By Boxing News - 01/12/2015 - Comments

golovkin44By Dan Ambrose: WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler is comparing the hard hitting Golovkin to another Mike Tyson with the way that he’s been knocking out all of his opponents and quickly building up a huge fan base in a short period of time the same way Tyson did during his career.

Golovkin has stopped his last 18 opponents over a 7-year period. The last guy to go the distance with Golovkin was back in 2008 when Amar Amari was able to make it through 8 rounds in losing a one-sided unanimous decision.

Golovkin, 32, has picked up a ton of fans lately with his wins over Marco Antonio Rubio, Matthew Macklin and Gabriel Rosado. He’s adopted the “Mexican style” of fighting, and he’s won over a lot of fans with the way he’s willing to brawl with his opponents instead of playing it safe like a lot of fighters do.

“It goes back to his style, people like knockouts. It’s a Mike Tyson thing I mean the boxing world revolved around Tyson when he was in his prime when he was knocking everybody out and that’s really where I think Gennady is heading,” Loeffler said. “Every fight like you said, he becomes more and more popular and the response we saw for the Rubio fight was tremendous.”

Golovkin needs to keep knocking guys out at this pace if he wants to make it to the next level and become a pay-per-view attraction. It could be a lot easier for him if one of the big names like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Miguel Cotto, Jermain Taylor, Peter Quillin, Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather Jr would fight him, but it looks like Golovkin is going to need to try and become a pay-per-view star the hard way by beating the best contenders he can face rather than relying on an opponent that can give him the Midas touch the way Pacquiao and Mayweather were helped with their fights against Oscar De La Hoya.

Golovkin will be taking on one of the better contenders he’s faced during his career next month in facing Martin Murray (29-1-1, 12 KOs) at the Salle des Étoiles, Monte Carlo, Monaco.

Murray isn’t even close to being a popular fighter, but he’s a good defensive fighter, he’s huge for the weight class, and he can take a lot of punishment. Murray doesn’t have any punching power, and he’s mainly just someone who jabs a lot and throws an occasional power shot.

Murray won’t have the power to stand in the kitchen with Golovkin and trade with him for 12 rounds, so it’s going to be up to the referee and Murray’s corner to decide when he’s had enough.

I don’t suspect Murray will go down from any of Golovkin’s power shots to the head, because like I said, Murray can take a good shot. He also keeps his guard up at all times to block any incoming shots, and that’s going to make it hard for Golovkin to land anything. If Golovkin is going to score a knockout in this fight, it’s going to come from a body punch rather than a head shot.



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