Mayweather: I would have fought Golovkin if I could make 160

By Boxing News - 11/08/2015 - Comments

Boxing: Golovkin vs LemieuxBy Dan Ambrose: Floyd Mayweather Jr. says that he would have gladly fought IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin during his career if he could make 160 for a fight between them, but that never happened.

Mayweather started his career out at super featherweight and moved up all the way to junior middleweight, but he wasn’t willing to fight at middleweight. Mayweather says he doesn’t see anything spectacular in Golovkin when he watches him fight.

Mayweather doesn’t want to criticism what he’s capable of doing in the future as far as him becoming a pay-per-view attraction or not. Mayweather retired recently after win over Andre Berto last September, and he says he realizes that the sport of boxing has to live on now that he’s gone.

“Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. We know boxing has got to live on, so we don’t know what he [Golovkin] capable of doing,” Mayweather said about Golovkin to Dontae’s Boxing Nation. “I wish him nothing but the best. To each his own. I really don’t know him. I don’t have anything bad to say about the guy. If I was able to make 160 when I was fighting, I would have fought him. I haven’t seen nothing spectacular [in Golovkin], but he’s going out there and doing everything he has to do against the guys he’s faced,” Mayweather said.

Mayweather could have fought Golovkin because the Kazakhstan fighter only rehydrates to 170lbs for his fights at middleweight, which makes him lighter than the 175lb Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. We saw Brandon Rios rehydrate to 170lbs last night in his 9th round knockout loss to WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley.

If Mayweather was willing to fight Canelo, then he should have been willing to fight Golovkin. Besides that, Golovkin said he would dehydrate down to 154 to fight Mayweather. Yeah, Golovkin obviously would rehydrate up in weight to have a weight advantage over Mayweather, but we’d probably be still talking about a fighter less than 170lbs against Mayweather.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AqdWxtaizs

Canelo rehydrated to 167 for his fight against Mayweather in 2013. Marcos Maidana weighed 165lbs for his fight against Mayweather in 2014. I think the main reason why Mayweather has been reluctant to fight Golovkin isn’t because of his weight advantage, but rather his one-punch power. Golovkin is the same size roughly as Canelo and Maidana, and Mayweather fought both of them.

The main difference between Golovkin and those guys is Golovkin punches harder and is arguably a much better fighter than those guys. It’s too bad Mayweather didn’t want to test himself against Golovkin because he has no argument for not fighting him.

Canelo should be fighting in the middleweight division like Golovkin does, but Canelo has his own weight class at 155lbs that he’s been fighting at. He doesn’t want to call himself a middleweight, even though 155lbs is in the middleweight division. Golovkin could do the same thing if he wanted to in draining down five extra pounds and saying he’s not a middleweight, and then rehydrating to 170.

“Man, get the f. They [Team Golovkin] shut-up. They don’t know the hell they’re talking about,” Mayweather Sr. said when told that the talk is that Golovkin will be the next pay-per-view star.

YouTube video

As far as Golovkin becoming a PPV star, he may not ever get to that level. He might just have to be content with being the same type of fighter that Miguel Cotto is in terms of popularity. Cotto isn’t a big PPV attraction either. The only fights he’s had that brought in big PPV numbers were when he fought Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. When Cotto was the A-side in a PPV fight against Sergio Martinez, it brought in only 300,000 PPV buys.

This is with Cotto having spent his entire career fighting in the U.S, which is unlike Golovkin, who has only been fighting off and on in the U.S for the past five years. I think Golovkin might have to be content with being a Cotto or Canelo type fighter as far as his PPV ability goes.

Canelo only brought in 300,000 PPV buys for his fight against Alfredo Angulo. The only fights where Canelo has brought in a lot of PPV buys was when he was the B-side attraction in a PPV fight against Mayweather, and when he fought on Mayweather’s undercard three years ago in his fight against Miguel Cotto in 2012.



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