By Scott Gilfoid: Tom Loeffler, the promoter for IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin wants to bring him back to the UK in the near future to match him against one of the following British fighters: Billy Joe Saunders, Chris Eubank Jr. and James DeGale. Golovkin has already been ordered by the World Boxing Association to defend his title against WBA ‘regular’ middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs within 120 days, so that looks like it’s going to be happening next for Golovkin.
If Golovkin gets past Jacobs, then there’s a possibility that he could be coming back to the UK to fight the likes of Saunders, Eubank or DeGale. Saunders is the first priority for Golovkin, because he’ the WBO middleweight champion, and that’s the last remaining 160lb title not in Golovkin’s possession. He would like to win that belt so that he can have all the titles in his possession.
“Eubank, Saunders and DeGale are massive fights and if these happen in the UK, they will be massive events,” said Loeffler to skysports.com. “If we can’t get a fight with those other middleweights then of course a fight with James DeGale makes sense. He’s got a fight with Badou Jack, and if he wins that I think that’s a great fight that can be made.”
It’s hard to imagine Golovkin not getting Saunders or Eubank Jr. to fight him, because both guys have been doing a lot of talking lately about wanting to fight him. After seeing how Kell Brook was able to land shots against Golovkin last Saturday night, they might want to fight him. It’s no big deal. However, I don’t know how much interest a fight between Golovkin and Eubank Jr. or Saunders would create in the boxing world or in the UK.
Saunders and Eubank Jr. haven’t exactly been facing the best opposition during their careers. Saunders just has the two fights against Andy Lee and Eubank Jr. to show for himself on his resume. All the rest of the guys Saunders have fought were obscure fighters. As for Eubank Jr., he’s even worse off, as he only has the fight against Saunders to show for himself.
Eubank Jr. has not shown much effort to face the big names. He had a chance to fight Daniel Jacobs when he was his WBA mandatory challenger, but Eubank Jr. instead went and fought Nick Blackwell for the British middleweight title. It was a confusing move to say the least. The only way it was understandable to me is if I viewed it as a situation where Eubank Jr. might not have felt like he was ready to fight Jacobs at the time, so instead of risking his hide by fighting him, he went the soft route by taking on Blackwell for his British strap. Eubank Jr. has since beaten Tom Doran in defending his British strap, and now he’s about to defend it again next month against Tommy Langford on October 22.
“We think that seeing Kell land so many punches on Gennady that hopefully the other fighters that turned that one down might get some inspiration from that,” said Loeffler.
Sadly, I think Loeffler is right about other fighters now potentially getting brave after seeing all the shots that Brook was able to land. I mean, Brook didn’t last any longer than many of the guys that Golovkin has faced in the past. The only real difference that I could see is that Brook landed a lot of shots during the fight, and he made Golovkin miss with a whole bunch of his shots.
Golovkin still landed a high percentage of his shots in connecting on 44.2 compared to Brook’s 32.6, but I don’t think the boxing public is used to Golovkin getting hit as much as he did. It wasn’t effortless for GGG like it’s been. He was always going to have problems in this fight due to Brook’s hand speed advantage, and the fact that he was going to have to get hit with a certain amount of shots before he got the knockout. But Golovkin made his job a lot harder by failing to attack the body of Brook. He wasted time trying to land head shots, and that proved to be difficult because of the elusiveness of Brook.
We’ll find out eventually if guys like Saul Canelo Alvarez will come out of the woodwork now to fight Golovkin now that he saw him get tagged a lot. The thing is, Canelo isn’t as hard to hit as Brook, so he might not be too excited about fighting Golovkin.