By Dan Ambrose: IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “Triple G” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) won’t be getting the big fight that he wanted in the first quarter of next year against Golden Boy Promotions’ franchise fighter Saul Canelo Alvarez, but his promoter Tom Loeffler plans on keeping him very busy in the New Year by having him fight three separate times starting with a fight in either March or April.
Loeffler and Golovkin are currently waiting for the smoke to clear from this Saturday’s fight in the UK between Billy Joe Saunders and WBO 160lb belt holder Andy Lee. Loeffler would like to match Golovkin against the winner of that fight.
In order to make that happen, it’s going to require that Lee beats Saunders. Lee wants to fight Golovkin next. Saunders has spoken of eventually wanting to face Golovkin at some point, but he’s not sure when that would be.
The plan is still for GGG to fight 3 times in 2016, he is the most active world champion in boxing https://t.co/QV9YsWFlbm
— Tom Loeffler (@TomLoeffler1) December 15, 2015
Loeffler says that the first priority for Golovkin for his next fight is to get him the winner of the Lee-Saunders fight if possible. If they can’t get that fight, then it’s possible that Golovkin will defend against his IBF mandatory challenger Tureano Johnson.
That would be a good fight that would be entertaining to the boxing fans, but it won’t attract the amount of interest as a fight against the winner of the Saunders vs. Lee fight would. Above all, Golovkin wants to opportunities to collect the remaining middleweight belts at all costs. Golovkin will eventually get a shot at the WBC middleweight title held by Canelo at some point in the future.
It’s going to be difficult for Golovkin to fight three times in 2016 like Loeffler wants him to. If Golovkin fights in March or April next year, it will give him five to six months before Canelo’s second fight in the year. Canelo wants to fight in September on the Mexican Independence day, as he’s staked out both of the Mexican holidays for 2016, according to his promoter Oscar De La Hoya.
There’s no way that Golovkin will be able to squeeze in a third fight in 2016 if he fights Canelo in September unless that fight turns out to be a fast one with Golovkin scoring a 1st or 2nd round knockout without getting hurt. If it ends up as a grueling fight where both guys take a lot of punishment, then the likely earliest we’ll see Golovkin back inside the ring is 2016 in January or February.
Golovkin wants to be a really busy fighter, but it’s tough to do that when you’re spending time trying to put together the bigger fights rather than just the average run-of-the-mill variety that Golovkin has been known for.
Once Golovkin does eventually face Canelo, he could run out of interesting fights in the 160lb division unless Canelo wants a rematch. I don’t think Miguel Cotto will ever bother fighting Golovkin due to his size and punching power. There aren’t any big names in the 154lb division for Golovkin to fight unless he wants to try and face Erislandy Lara, Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade and Jermell Charlo. Those are all fights that would interest the hardcore boxing fans of the sport, but not the casual fans all that much because there aren’t a lot of fans who are familiar with the guys.
I don’t think that Loeffler would have the nerve to hunt for Golovkin opponents from the 147lb division, because it would look so bad if he were to do that. It would be nice to see Golovkin chop down the likes of Lara, the Charlo brothers and Andrade in time-killing fights while he waits for Canelo, but it wouldn’t be sporting if Golovkin were to hunt down the likes of Tim Bradley or Amir Khan.
Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya is interested in matching him up against Bradley and Khan for some reason. There would be a tremendous weight advantage for Canelo in both fights; possibly as much as 20 pounds against both fighters. It would be similar to the mismatch that took place two years ago when light welterweight Josesito Lopez moved up from the 140lb division to fight Canelo at junior middleweight.
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