By Sean Jones: Middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) will be getting a guaranteed purse of $1 million for his voluntary defense against career junior middleweight contender Vanes Martirosyan (36-3-1, 21 KOs) tonight in their fight on HBO World Championship Boxing at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
Martirosyan will be getting $225,000 to challenge GGG or his IBO, WBA and WBC middleweight titles. The IBF belt won’t be on the line tonight because they chose not to sanction the fight due to Martirosyan being a junior middleweight, inactive for the last 2 years and coming off of a loss.
Golovkin should be making $5 million per fight given his pound-for-pound status and the fact that he holds 3 of the 4 world titles at middleweight. For Golovkin to make that kind of money, he would need to either fight in the UK all the time or have a lot of big name opponents to face. Obviously, fighting Martirosyan was a mistake for GGG. If he wanted to maximize his income, he should have used Sergey Derevyanchenko or Demetrius Andrade as his replacement rather than Martirosyan.
$225K for Martirosyan isn’t great money, but there’s not much interest in this fight. Without it being a PPV worthy bout, there’s no way for either fighter to get huge money. Golovkin’s money pales in comparison to the big paydays that fighters like heavyweight Anthony Joshua is getting in the UK for his fights. Golovkin is expected to make more money from overseas for the Martirosyan fight.
Golovkin could have made 10 times the amount of money if his fight with Saul Canelo Alvarez had taken place this Saturday. Canelo tested positive for clenbuterol on two occasions last February while training for the GGG rematch. Canelo pulled out of the fight days before he met with the Nevada State Athletic Commission and was suspended for 6 months.
In other purses on the card, Cecelia Braekhus is getting $50,000 for her fight against Kali Reiss in the co-feature bout in female boxing. Reiss is getting $20,000.
The 36-year-old Golovkin comes into the Martirosyan fight with 19 successful title defenses of his middleweight belts. Golovkin has knocked out 17 of those opponents. Tonight, GGG will be looking to tie Bernard Hopkins’ record of 20 successful title defenses. With any luck, Golovkin will break the record against Saul Canelo Alvarez next September to win his 21st title defense. Golovkin has past successful title defenses against Kell Brook, Daniel Jacobs, Martin Murray, Marco Antonio Rubio, Matthew Macklin, Daniel Geale, David Lemieux and Curtis Stevens.
“It’s very impressive. I know that 19 is a big accomplishment, and I have a 20th title defense ahead of me,” Golovkin said to ESPN about being on the verge of tying Bernard Hopkins’ record of 20 title defenses. ”I didn’t realize he [Hopkins] had so many defenses, because so many times he was fighting the same opponent. I was going step by step and improving my record, and so now I have a very impressive result.”
Martirosyan, 32, is going to be trying to dent Golovkin’s chin with his power shots tonight. Martirosyan is a very big puncher when he’s sitting down on his shots and trying to hurt his opponents. Martirosyan has been saying for the last 2 weeks that he plans on using the Mexican style when he gets inside the ring with GGG. He’s not going to box him for 12 rounds and count on the judges to hopefully give him the decision.
Martirosyan is the B-side fighter, and it’s not likely the judges will give him a decision if the fight goes to the scorecards. Martirosyan is in the same position that Triple G was in when he fought Saul Canelo Alvarez last September. For that reason, Martirosyan needs to make sure that he’s in control of his own destiny by knocking Golovkin out so that the judges aren’t able to take away his win. It’s going to be hard for Martirosyan to knockout Golovkin, because he’s never been hurt before or knocked down in any of his fights during his 13-year pro career.
Golovkin has always been able to take his opponents best shots and come out on top. Martirosyan is a big underdog in this fight. The odds-makers expect Martirosyan to lose, and many of them expect him to be knocked out. Martirosyan has never been knocked out, so it’s going to require an aggressive approach to this fight by GGG for him to score a stoppage. He won’t be able to do it by staying on the outside throwing jabs for 12 rounds like he did against Canelo and Daniel Jacobs.
Martirosyan is a 2012 U.S Olympian with good boxing skills and power. However, Martirosyan’s career hasn’t panned out like he had hoped it would. Losses to Demetrius Andrade, Erislandy Lara and Jermell Charlo have put Martirosyan in a position where he’s fighting for his career. He’s lost 2 out of his last 3 fights, and another loss will badly hurt his standing unless he gives GGG all he could handle tonight.
Bernard Hopkins doubts that Golovkin would have been successful during his era a middleweight. Hopkins doesn’t say who he feels would have beaten GGG during his 10-year reign as a world champion from 1995 to 2005. Hopkins was beating guys that were in some cases old and over-the-hill like Felix Trinidad and Oscar De La Hoya. Both were good fighters when they were young, active and fighting at 147, but neither of them belonged at 160 fighting Hopkins at the time they fought him. Golovkin would have likely knocked both of them out. Hopkins’ other wins during his title run at 160 were against fighters like Antwun Echoles and Robert Allen.
“Half of his opponents couldn’t probably tie Trinidad’s shoes,” Hopkins said to ESPN.com about Golovkin. ”I don’t think he would have been as successful in my era.”
Golovkin probably would have lost to Roy Jones Jr. when he was in his prime, but that’s about the only one that he would have been beaten by. Hopkins wasn’t much of a puncher, so the only thing GGG would have had to worry about with him is being wrestled for 12 rounds. Hopkins was a good wrestler during his career, but he always lost to the good fighters. Hopkins could be counted on the beat the flawed guys or the older guys fighting out of their weight classes.