By Dan Ambrose: Gennady Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez sees there being no comparison to his fighter Triple G fighting a welterweight in Kell Brook and what Saul Canelo Alvarez did in beating up on former lightweight Amir Khan on May 7 of this year. Golovkin has been taking a lot of heat from the boxing world for choosing to fight IBF 147lb belt holder Brook rather than fighting one of the arguably more deserving top contenders in the 160lb division or at the very least fighting a top junior middleweight like Erislandy Lara.
Sanchez argues that Brook is a solid welterweight and not someone that was knocked out in the 1st round by lightweight Breidis Prescott in their fight eight years ago.
Khan moved up in weight from lightweight to light welterweight and ended up suffering defeats at the hands of Lamont Peterson and Danny Garcia. Khan then moved up in weight to welterweight, where he was matched carefully until he choose to move up to 155 and face Canelo for his WBC middleweight crown.
“Canelo did not fight a welterweight; Canelo fought a lightweight,” said Sanchez to RingTV.com. “Khan was knocked out by Breidis Prescott in one round, moved up to junior lightweight and was knocked out by Danny Garcia in four rounds and everybody he’s fought between Garcia and Canelo hurt him. You’re not talking about an established, full welterweight that has never fought below that at championship level. You’re talking about a guy who’s undefeated, so it’s completely night and day different from Canelo-Khan.”
I agree with Sanchez. What he forgets to say is that Brook is really a junior middleweight, not a welterweight. He’s just someone that is willing to put himself through an incredibly grueling process to drain down to 147 to fight in that weight class rather than fighting in his natural weight class at junior middleweight against guys his own size. Brook has his reasons for wanting to drain down to 147, but he’s really a junior middleweight.
It’s not bad what Golovkin is doing in fighting Brook, because he’s really facing a junior middleweight instead of a welterweight. Besides that, Golovkin is really more of a large junior middleweight than he is a middleweight. Golovkin only weighs 170lbs for his fights at middleweight. We have junior middleweights that balloon up to 170 for their fights. Look at Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara. Some of the guys like the Charlo brothers are fighters that easily could be fighting in the middleweight division like Golovkin.
Canelo was basically fighting a pumped up lightweight in Amir Khan and not a welterweight. It’s much different what Canelo did in fighting Khan compared to what Golovkin will be doing in his fight against Brook on September 10 at the O2 Arena in London, England. Golovkin will be fighting a guy his own size in Brook.
“I knew way before (Canelo) said he wasn’t going to fight us, in my heart, because it wasn’t the right fight for (Golden Boy Promotions President and CEO) Oscar (De La Hoya). The business of boxing got in the way,” said Sanchez. “It is a business and Canelo’s young and maybe a guy like Golovkin, at this moment, would destroy his confidence and maybe he can’t rebound from that.”
I think it is what it is. If Canelo and Golden Boy don’t want to take the Golovkin fight until he’s old or whatever, then they need to move on and focus on the fighters that do want to fight Triple G. Sooner or later, Golden Boy and Canelo will take the fight with Golovkin. They have to because there’s too much money to be made for them not to fight him.
Until Canelo and Golden Boy chooses to take the fight with Golovkin, there’s a lot of great opportunities for the Kazakhstan fighter in facing British fighters Brook, Chris Eubank Jr. and Billy Joe Saunders. Those are three good fights. If Golovkin wants to fight some additional welterweights, then he should focus on looking to get guys like Keith Thurman, Tim Bradley, Jessie Vargas, Danny Garcia and Shawn Porter. Any or all of those fighters would be great fights for Golovkin. Unfortunately, there isn’t much for Golovkin to choose from in the 154lb division because most of those fighters don;t have a fan base. Financially the money isn’t there for a fight between Golovkin any of the top junior middleweights with the exception of Miguel Cotto, who probably will never agree to fight GGG.