Golovkin anxious to fight again

By Boxing News - 11/19/2015 - Comments

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By Tim Fletcher: IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) says all the talk about the clash between Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) and Miguel Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) this Saturday night has him chomping at the bit wanting to get inside the ring as soon as possible so that he can start fighting again.

Golovkin is coming off of an impressive stoppage win over IF Middleweight champion David Lemieux last October in Golovkin’s first PPV fight on HBO, and he can’t wait to get another big fight.

Ideally, Golovkin would like to fight the winner of the Cotto-Canelo fight, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen unless someone like Canelo opts to take the fight out of pressure from the boxing public.

Canelo has done that before in the past by resisting the advice from his careful promoter Oscar De La Hoya to take on Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara, both of which he beat by close decisions.

If Golovkin can’t get the winner of the Cotto vs. Canelo fight, then we could see him facing his IBF mandatory challenger Tureano Johnson in March or April of 2016, according to his promoter Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions.

Johnson recently earned the fight to fight Golovkin with his victory in an IBF eliminator bout over Eamonn O’Kane. Johnson looked very impressive in giving O’Kane a beating over 12 rounds to become the IBF mandatory challenger for Golovkin.

Canelo has a lot of options if he defeats Cotto on Saturday night, because Top Rank promoter Bob Arum has already said that he’d like to match either Tim Bradley or Manny Pacquiao against Canelo. Oscar De La Hoya says he’d like to see Canelo face one of those two fighters if Floyd Mayweather Jr. doesn’t come out of retirement to face Canelo for a second time. That’s obviously the first choice for De La Hoya, because the money would be so good for Canelo and for Golden Boy if Mayweather picks out Canelo again. Of course, the negotiations would have to be different from the last time they fought because the purse split was too far in Mayweather’s favor. Canelo is a little more popular now, so he can push for a bigger split of the money with Mayweather in a second fight.



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