Golovkin still interested in facing Mayweather or Pacquiao at 154

By Boxing News - 04/26/2015 - Comments

golovkin101By Dan Ambrose: WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (32-0, 29 KOs) hasn’t given up on his dream of facing Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao in the future. Golovkin says he’s still willing to drain down to 154 to fight both of them.

It shouldn’t be an issue for either fighter because both have fought at junior middleweight before. Pacquiao captured the WBC junior middleweight title in 2010 after beating welterweight Antonio Margarito at a catch-weight of 150 pounds.

Pacquiao gave up the WBC title just three months later in vacating it. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez then moved in and fought welterweight Matthew Hatton to capture the vacant WBC junior middleweight title.

Mayweather is currently the WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion. He would have no excuse not to face Golovkin given that he is holding own two titles at 154.

“Yes, they’re No. 1 and 2 pound for pound,” Golovkin said to Boxingjunkie.com. “It’s my dream fight with Floyd or with Manny. I’m at 160 (pounds), they’re at 147. Maybe at 154, we can do it. It’s a big deal.”

Getting Mayweather or Pacquiao to agree to a fight against Golovkin may prove to be impossible. Indeed, I don’t think either fighter has any interest whatsoever in fighting Golovkin due to their being such a small margin of error against the Kazakhstan fighter.

Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach and his promoter Bob Arum like to brag about how hard it is to hit Pacquiao due to his side to side movement and with the way he jumps in and jumps out to attack his opponents, but none of that would help ultimately. It would be like a replay of Julian Jackson vs. Terry Norris where Pacquiao does well for about one round, and then runs into trouble in the 2nd round when he finally gets nailed cleanly by one of Golovkin’s big shots. If Pacquiao is still upright after that happens, you can expect Golovkin to finish him off with a flurry of hard shots to the head. Golovkin is also a vicious body puncher, and he would have a good chance of knocking Pacquiao out to the body as well.

Golovkin will be fighting next month on May 16th against #2 WBA, #3 WBO, #9 WBC Willie Monroe (19-1, 6 KOs) at the Forum, in Inglewood, California, USA. The Golovkin-Monroe fight will be televised on HBO Championship Boxing.

Golovkin likes the ideal of fighting a southpaw and that’s why he selected Monroe because he sees him potentially as a more difficult style match-up than the other guys he could be facing. He’d like to fight WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto, but he’s going in another direction in a fight against Daniel Geale in June. After that, Cotto is expected to face Canelo Alvarez, even though the World Boxing Council already said that he has to face Golovkin next after Cotto’s voluntary defense against Geale.

“This is my life. I’m not mad,” Golovkin said to Boxingjunkie.com about being seemingly avoided by the top fighters. “I’m not angry (that nobody will challenge me).”

Golovkin was interested in facing former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., but that fight never materialized. Golovkin has also shown interest in fighting WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch, but he’s not been able to get him to agree to a fight either.

“The first step for me because he’s a southpaw,” Golovkin said via HBO. “Everyone has problems with southpaw. I think it’s a big fight for us. I promise a big show. A drama show.”

It’s going to be interesting to see if Golovkin can catch-up to Monroe to land anything big because the American fighter moves well, and is very elusive. He’s a much more elusive fighter than Golovkin’s last opponent Martin Murray, who Golovkin struggled to take out last February. Murray was able to survive until the 11th round before Golovkin was finally able to score a stoppage.



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