Golovkin looking beyond Murray, wants Lee-Quillin winner or Froch

By Boxing News - 02/18/2015 - Comments

Final Press Conference(Photo credit: Will Hart/HBO) By Scott Gilfoid: WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovin is facing #1 WBC Martin Murray this Saturday night in Monte Carlo, but already Golovkin is looking past Murray towards bigger fights against the winner of the April 11th fight between WBO middleweight champion Andy Lee and Peter Quillin.

Golovkin also is interested in facing WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch if he can get him to agree to the fight. In both cases, we’re probably looking at 2016 before any of those fights can take place.

Lee has talked about wanting to fight Golovin in the future in a unification bout, but he may have been just name dropping in order to get attention in the media. Only time will tell whether Lee is legitimately interested in fighting the hard hitting Golovkin, but I tend to doubt it.

“He hopes in the future to fight against Andy Lee and of course there could be a potential fight with Froch,” Golovkni’s manager Max Herman said via ESPN.co.uk. “Absolutely he could fight in the UK one day if there’s a good opponent – maybe Carl Froch or maybe Andy Lee, it depends.”

What’s especially interesting is that Golovkin is looking past the Murray fight. Golovkin has been talking about how he sees Murray as being really strong, and still undefeated due to his controversial fights against Sergio Martinez and Felix Sturm.

It makes you wonder if Golovkin has been merely diplomatic the past few weeks with his kind words about Murray, because surely he wouldn’t be overlooking the British fighter if he really believed he was a threat to his unbeaten record.

As far as Golovkin’s hope of getting a fight against Froch, I don’t see that happening. Froch hasn’t been mentioning Golovkin’s name at all recently. Froch has been talking about wanting to fight Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, and Froch’s promoter Eddie Hearn has been kicking around the possibility of a Froch vs. Bernard Hopkins fight. I see Froch taking one or both of those fights in the near future.

If he wins those and still doesn’t retire, I can see Froch possibly fighting James DeGale in 2016. But that would be contingent on DeGale defeating Andre Dirrell in their fight on April 25th. If DeGale loses that fight, as I imagine he will, it’ll pretty much close the door permanently on a Froch vs. DeGale fight. Froch won’t likely have anything to do with Dirrell if he tops DeGale.

With Golovkin looking past Murray, this is a good chance for Murray to try and cause an upset on Saturday night by coming out fast out of the blocks to see if he can score an upset. I think for Murray to win this fight, he’s going to need to become a pressure fighter for the entire 12 rounds of the fight. He’s going to need to smother Golovkin’s power and beat him at close quarters in the same way Ricky Hatton mugged Kostya Tszyu in their fight in 2005.

Unfortunately for Murray, he’s never been a pressure fighter before, and he’s shown the ability to fight on the inside. If he does decide to fight Golovkin on the inside, it’ll likely be Golovkin who will be having his way with his powerful body punching. Golovkin has hard four years to learn the “Mexican style” of fighting under his trainer Abel Sanchez, and he’s now very dangerous in close.