By Dan Ambrose: Not only does WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) want to be the one that faces Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) for his September 12th date in Las Vegas, Nevada, but Golovkin is very confident that he’ll defeat the American fighter.
Golovkin says he’s ready to face Mayweather right now if the fight can be made. Golovkin is ready to take it. The question is would Mayweather be willing to fight Golovkin at junior middleweight? Golovkin says he’ll come down in weight six pounds to meet Mayweather at 154.
Mayweather has already beaten a similarly sized Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in 2013. Canelo is slightly heavier than Golovkin. So it’s arguably not a question of weight why Mayweather wouldn’t fight Golovkin if he chooses not to.
“He’s my dream fight. Of course, I’d beat him,” Golovkin said about Mayweather to TMZ.com. “100 percent, I’m ready for anybody.”
Mayweather would shake up the boxing world if he were to agree to fight the 33-year-old Golovkin because many fans don’t believe Mayweather is confident enough to take such a risky fight. This would be a fight where Mayweather likely wouldn’t be the favorite. It would be more of a 50-50 fight.
It wouldn’t be surprising if Golovkin were to be the favorite going in because of his ability to end a fight with one punch. Mayweather is very hard to hit, and it could be a problem for Golovkin to land his shots. However, Golovkin wouldn’t hold back from attacking Mayweather the way that Manny Pacquiao did in their fight last month on May 2nd. Golovkin would walk through Mayweather’s jabs, left hooks and straight right hands in order to connect with his big power shots the same way Marcos Maidana did in his two fights with Mayweather in 2014.
Just by agreeing to fight Golovkin, Mayweather would win a lot of respect with boxing fans because it’s highly unlikely that Pacquiao would ever agree to fight Golovkin unless he were to drain down to 147 to take the fight. Even then, I doubt that Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum would give the green light to letting Pacquiao take that fight against the Kazakhstan star. After the way that Pacquiao was knocked out by Juan Manuel Marquez in 2012, I don’t think Arum would let Golovkin anywhere near his No.1 fighter Pacquiao.
If Mayweather were to agree to fight Golovkin, you would have to hope that there wouldn’t be a rehydration clause in the contract to keep Golovkin from rehydrating more than 10 pounds. But if there was a 10 pound rehydration weight clause like the one they have in the Adrien Broner vs. Shawn Porter fight for this Saturday, I think Golovkin would still be able to make the weight. He comes into his fights at around 170. If he has to fight at a catch-weight of 154, he’d obviously need to use a lot more endurance exercises during training camp to strip off some of the muscle he has on his frame. It’s unlikely that Golovkin’s punching power would be effected with the weight loss.
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