By Scott Gilfoid: WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (26-0, 23 KO’s) has a lot riding on his fight against Matthew Macklin (29-4, 20 KO’s) on Jun 29th at the MGM Grand at Foxwoods Resort, in Mashantucket, Connecticut, USA.
If Golovkin wins this fight, he’s going to be facing WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez in a unification match. Golovkins says that Sergio Martinez’s promoter Lou Dibella told him that if he can get past Macklin, he’ll put him in with Martinez.
Whether that turns out to be the case or not is a whole different matter altogether. Just because a promoter says something verbally to a fighter doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.
As broken down as Martinez is starting to look as a fighter, I would be very surprised if Dibella let Martinez anywhere near a prime puncher like Golovkin.
Golovkin said to esnewsreporting.com “Mr. Dibella told me, ‘Gennady, if you beat Matthew, I promise you a fight with Sergio Martinez.’ [I said] ‘Okay, Mr. Dibella, thank you.’ This [the Macklin fight] is a big step for the best fight.”
If Dibella is on the level with this, he sure has made it easy for Golovkin to get the Martinez fight because Macklin is made to order for Golovkin. If you were to create the perfect opponent for Golovkin to thrash, it would be a fighter exactly like Macklin because it doesn’t get any easier than this for Golovkin.
Macklin has poor defensive skills, he tends plod straight into shots, he’s not a huge puncher, and he’s always right there in front of his opponents looking to slug it out with them. This isn’t a fight where Golovkin is going to have to chase his opponent down like he did in his win over Gabriel Rosado.
Macklin will be right there and he’s going to be begging to get smacked by Golovkin. I know Macklin was able to extend Sergio Martinez to the 11th round last year before getting knocked out in the 11th round in March 2012, but I can’t see Macklin going more than 3 or 4 rounds at best against Golovkin because he’s going to be walking straight into the teeth of Golovkin’s offense.
You don’t do that if you’re smart, but the problem is, Macklin doesn’t have any choice. He only knows how to fight in one style, so it’s not as if he can change his fighting style to be a different kind of fighter than what he is.
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