By Dan Ambrose: Making his first defense of his World Boxing Association (WBA) World middleweight title unbeaten champion Gennady Golovkin (21-0, 18 KO’s) stopped former IBF junior middleweight champ Kassim Ouma (27-8-1, 17 KO’s) in the 10th round at the Roberto Duran Arena in Panama City, Panama. TGolovkin, 29, hurt Ouma with a series of hard shots in the 10th round and was punishing him on the ropes when the referee Guillermo Perez stopped the fight at 1:57 of the round.

Ouma’s face was badly swollen from the hard punishing shots from Golovkin at the time of the stoppage. However, Golovkin’s face was badly swollen as well and he really didn’t impress in this fight. The early rounds were close with Ouma doing the better work with his smooth combinations and his superior inside fighting ability. Golovkin, who is listed at 5’9″, kept the fight on the inside against the 5’8″ Ouma. One of the reasons Golovkin needed to stay in close was his lack of reach.

Although he’s listed as being taller than Ouma, it was Ouma who appeared to be the taller fighter with longer arms and a bigger frame. When Golovkin was on the outside, he often was hit cleanly by Ouma. Starting in the 4th, Golovkin changed his tactics by pressuring Ouma more and staying in close. But despite being on the inside, Golovkin was still taking a lot of punishment from Ouma. Golovkin appeared to lose rounds 4 through 6 because of Ouma’s better inside combinations. However, Ouma begin to show signs of tiring in the 7th. Golovkin landed some nice body shots in the round and that took a little bit of the energy out of Ouma.

The 8th round was fairly close with both fighters landing some good shots until the last seconds of the round when Golovkin landed a big uppercut to the head of Ouma that backed him up. Ouma was examined before the start of the 9th by the ringside doctor, who checked out Ouma’s badly swollen right eye which looked to be in the process of closing. Golovkin really punished Ouma in the 9th, hurting him with two hard right hands thrown back to back. Ouma looked exhausted and was no longer firing back like he had been in the earlier rounds. The 10th round was all Golovkin, as he punished a worn out and hurt Ouma throughout the round until badly hurting Ouma with a right hand while Ouma was backed up against the ropes and not looking at Golovkin when he was tagged. Golovkin then fired off an avalanche of punches ending with the referee stepping in and halting the fight.

All in all, I wasn’t too impressed with Golovkin. He lacks size at middleweight and really should consider moving down in weight to the junior middleweight division. Ouma is only 5’8″, yet he looked taller with longer arms than Golovkin. This isn’t a good sign because there’s bigger and better middleweights out there than Ouma and I can see Golovkin having problems in the future. Ouma was a fighter that Golovkin should have been able to beat without too many problems. Golokin’s fellow countryman Roman Karmazin was able to easily beat Ouma in 2005, but Karmazin is much taller and has longer arms than Golovkin. Golovkin needs to move down in weight if he knows what’s good for him.

Other action on the card:

World Boxing Association (WBA) bantamweight super champion Anselmo Moreno (31-1-1, 10 KO’s) stopped Lorenzo Parra (31-3-1, 18 KO’s) in the 8th round after Parra injured his right hand and couldn’t continue. This was the 25-year-old Moreno’s 8th successful title defense.