By Jim Dower: After fighting mostly B and C level opponents since he turned pro over a decade ago, WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) will be facing his first A-level fighter on October 17th when he faces IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs) on HBO pay-per-view at Madison Square Garden in New York.
It’s hard to say that the 26-year-old Lemieux is an A-level guy considering how flawed he is as a fighter, and the fact that he was beaten twice in the last by Joachim Alcine and Marco Antonio Rubio. But a fighter like Lemieux is what amounts to an A-level guy in this day and age in the 160lb division.
If Golovkin can make easy work or Lemieux, it’ll be a nice scalp to add to Golovkin’s resume. However, for him to really build up his resume, he’s going to need to beat Andy Lee, Chris Eubank Jr., Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Miguel Cotto, Peter Quillin, Daniel Jacobs, Andre Ward and Billy Joe Saunders.
“Ain’t nobody know [GGG], only HBO knows him. No American people know him. They’re trying to make him seem like a killer,” Danny Garcia’s father Angel Garcia said via thaboxingvoice.com. “He’s good, but he ain’t fighting nobody. Danny fought all the killers and they put cherries on his page. [GGG] really got cherries,” Angel said.
Garcia brings up a good point. Golovkin has been around longer than Danny Garcia has, but he’s not fought the names that Garcia has during his career. Golovkin’s last few fights have been against guys that are more ESPN level than they are in terms of the big names that you’re used to seeing on HBO.
Golovkin has beaten Willie Monroe Jr., Martin Murray and Daniel Geale in his last three fights. Those aren’t big names and they don’t tell us anything about how good or not so good that Golovkin is. Lemieux will definitely give us an idea of how good Golovkin is, but there are better fighters than Lemieux that Golovkin will need to fight and beat before he can be considered the best guy at 160.
Right now there’s still a question mark over the head of Golovkin due to the weak opposition he’s been steadily matched against since he turned pro. Angel Garcia is right to challenge Golovkin about his weak opposition because he’s still not fought anyone good yet.
“They’re trying to build a star where there is no star,” Angel said of Golovkin. “We are focused on DSG, that’s why we’re 30 and 0, but we’re fighting names,” Angel said.
HBO has kind of jumped the gun by trying to put Golovkin as one of their top stars before he’s even proven himself. He needs to prove himself by fighting whoever he can. If Canelo, Cotto, Lee, Jacobs, Saunders, Eubank Jr., and Quillin won’t fight Golovkin, then he needs to move up to 168 to face Andre Ward without a catch-weight. He’s not going to be able to get Ward to come down to 160 or 164 for that fight to happen. Golovkin needs to prove himself because he’s still totally unproven at this point.
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