By Chris Williams: Despite holding down the IBO/WBA middleweight and WBC interim middleweight titles, Gennady Golovkin (32-0, 29 KOs) says he could easily drop down to 154 to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr or Manny Pacquiao if either of the two fighters were interested in facing him.
Golovkin points out that he’s a small middleweight and how recently weighed in at 158 for his last fight against Martin Murray. Golovkin says he’d be more than willing to meet boxing’s two biggest superstars at 154 if they were agreeable to taking the fight.
“Absolutely,” Golovkin said via Fighthype when asked if he’d be willing to fight Mayweather or Pacquiao at 154. “This is business. I understand; this is boxing business. It’s not a lot of weight to lose. My last fight, I’m 58. I’m not big guy.”
In the case of Pacquiao, Golovkin would likely have to drain down all the way to 147 for that fight, because Pacquiao hasn’t been too eager to fight at junior middleweight ever since he captured the WBC junior middleweight title back in 2010 when he was given a catch-weight handicap of 150 pounds to win the vacant WBC 154 pound title against Antonio Margarito.
What was interesting about that fight was that Margarito was a welterweight, as was Pacquiao, and the two of them were able to leap frog the junior middleweight contenders to fight over the vacant WBC 154 pound title, albeit at 150 rather than 154. I don’t think Pacquiao would agree to fight Golovkin at a 150.
I’m guessing he would be asked to melt down all the way to 147 to take the fight, just like Oscar De La Hoya had to melt down to fight Pacquiao at 147. De La Hoya ended up too weak to fight, and the rest was history.
Pacquiao won an easy fight that made him look great and De La Hoya look terrible. I don’t think Golovkin would be willing to risk putting himself in the hospital by draining down too much weight and ending up physically sick from dehydrating himself to get down to unnatural weight.
I don’t see Golokin ever getting a fight against Mayweather or Pacquiao, because the fights don’t make business sense. First off, Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum would likely never let Pacquiao fight a slugger like Golovkin because the risk would be too high. If Golovkin were to knock Pacquiao clean out, he could potentially ruin the gravy train.
If Pacquiao were to get knocked out real bad by Golokvin, there would be a risk that Pacquiao’s chin would be compromised. I don’t think Arum would want to see Pacquiao potentially go downhill from then on with him getting knocked out left and right by any Top Rank stable fighter that Arum matches him up against. But the biggest reason why Golovkin won’t get fights against either guy is because he just doesn’t have the name value in the U.S.
They want to face opposition that is PPV stars or close to it and Golovkin isn’t at the level of a PPV fighter yet. To be honest, Golovkin may never reach that level. He lacks the charisma that Mayweather has, and he doesn’t have a huge following like Pacquiao has with his built in fan base.
Mayweather would likely agree to fight Golovkin at 154, but not 160, and he wouldn’t ask for a catch-weight handicap. As long as Golovkin could get down to 154, it would be a fight that could be possible.
Golovkin really is in no position to be talking about fighting anyone right now because he has a fight coming up on May 16th against a very good fighter in Willie Monroe (19-1, 6 KOs) at the Forum in Inglewood, California. I give Monroe a very good chance of out-boxing Golovkin in this fight with his hand speed and movement.
Golovkin had all kinds of problems in his last fight against Martin Murray, who used a lot of movement and clinching to tie Golovkin up and neutralize his offense almost entirely. If Murray was able to totally nullify Golovkin’s offense, then Monroe will have an excellent chance of doing the same thing to the Kazakhstan fighter.
Monroe is almost impossible to hit due to his fast twitch reflexes, fast feet, and excellent guard. Even when Monroe stands his ground, he’s hard to hit cleanly because he blocks and ducks shots, and he’s good at tying up his opponents to keep them from getting their shots off.
Golovkin, his trainer Abel Sanchez and promoter Tom Loeffler have been talking about wanting to fight Miguel Cotto and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez for the longest time. They need to forget about those fights, because Golovkin doesn’t have the popularity needed to get either of them. It’ll take Golovkin too long for him to become popular enough to fight them, and I just don’t see it happening in this lifetime. Golovkin won’t be able to get popular enough fighting the guys he’s been fighting, and he doesn’t have the personality in my view to attract the masses the way Mayweather has.
Golovkin needs to create his own legacy and stop worrying about hitching along on other fighters’ legacy. He needs to stay in his own lane and be content to fight the contenders that are available. Fighting guys like Monroe, Tureano Johnson, and Marco Antonio Rubio is perfectly fine.
There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a living. Golovkin might not be getting the millions that Canelo and Cotto are getting with each fight, but he’s still making decent money. It could be worse. Golovkin could be making the low money that some of the champions in the lighter weight classes are making.
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