By Allan Fox: The WBA stripped WBA Super World middleweight champion Daniel Geale for not agreeing to fight World Boxing Association (WBA) World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (24-0, 21 KO’s) after having been ordered to do so following Geale’s win over Felix Sturm. Golovkin will now be fighting either Edwin Rodriguez (22-0, 15 KO’s) or Thomas Oosthuizen (20-0-1, 13 KO’s) on January 19th at Madison Square Garden in New York, according to Dan Rafael.

Oosthuizen’s name was mentioned earlier today as a possible opponent for the 30-year-old Golovkin, but now the unbeaten Rodriguez’s name has been added to the mix.

A fight between Golovkin, a middleweight, and Oosthuizen or Rodriguez will take place at a catchweight of 165, says Rafael. This is a one fight only scenario for the 5’10” Golovkin, as he prefers to fight at middleweight. He doesn’t have the size to fight at super middleweight and it could be a tough fight for him to face the 6’4″ Oosthuizen and the 6’0″ Martinez. Those guys have the height, reach and weight advantage over Golovkin, although I highly doubt that will be enough them to win.

Rodriguez is a little more tricky than Oosthuizen because he moves a lot and likes to hit and then get away. Rodriguez would likely attempt to jab his way to a victory over Golovkin, and it would force Golovkin to work as a pressure fighter in order to force Rodriguez to fight him instead of running.

As for Geale, he’ll be facing Anthony Mundine in a rematch in January. Geale was beaten by Mundine by a controversial 12 round split decision in May 2009, and he wants to avenge that loss. It’s a much bigger money fight against Mundine than it would be for Geale to fight Golovkin. But they still will likely meet up next year as long as Geale defeats Mundine.

Oosthuizen has to defeat Fulgencio Zuniga (25-5-1, 22 KO’s) on November 10th in order to stay in the running for a fight against Golovkin.

A Golovkin-Oosthuizen or Golovkin-Rodriguez would almost surely end up on HBO in the United States. American boxing fans would be seeing Golovkin for the second time.