By Allan Fox: WBA World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (23-0, 20 KO’s) will be fighting #6 WBO Grzegorz Proksa (28-1, 21 KO’s) in an HBO televised bout on September 1st at the Turning Stone Resort & Casino, in Verona, New York. Proksa, 27, is the replacement opponent for Dmitriy Pirog, who injured his back while training for a fight against Golovkin.

The 5’8″ southpaw Proksa is one of those rare opponents a fighter gets where the guy may be even better than the original fighter that was previously scheduled to fight Golovkin. We don’t know for sure, but Proksa has looked awfully good in some of his recent bouts against Kerry Hope and Sebastian Sylvester. Proksa is like a heavier, slower southpaw version of Floyd Mayweather Jr. but with better power. He does a lot of the same things that Mayweather does in ther ing but with a lot more power on his shots.

Golovkin is going to have to be really careful that he doesn’t get hit with one of Proksa’s left hand bombs or right hooks, because he can end things if he connects. However, the same goes for Golovkin, who perhaps has even better power than Proksa does. That’s one thing that neither of these fighters has faced – a guy that can punch with big power. It’s hard to imagine how each of these fighters will do when tasting big power.

Proksa looked uncomfortable in his first fight with Kerry Hope in March of this year in a fight where Proksa was hit a lot and busted up. Hope was by no means a big puncher, though, and nowhere near as hard a puncher as what Proksa will be experiencing against Golovkin on September 1st. Proksa is going to have to focus a lot on defense in this fight if he doesn’t want to get taken out with a single shot or badly busted up like he was in the first Hope fight.