By Allan Fox: WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (27-0, 24 KO’s) successfully weighed in for his fight tomorrow night against Curtis Stevens (25-3, 18 KO’s) at the Madison Square Garden Theater, in New York, New York, USA. The 5’10 1/2″ Golovkin weighed in at 159.6 lbs., and the 5’7″ Stevens came in at 159.25 lbs.
This could be the most difficult title defense for Golovkin since his war against Kassim Ouma in June of 2011. That fight was by far the toughest of Golovkin’s career as he took a lot of punishment from Ouma until finally stopping him in the 10th round.
Golovkin has improved since then by developing an inside game and becoming a dangerous body puncher. But if he’s forced to trade on the inside against the shorter Stevens then this could be a pick em’ fight because Stevens is a murderous puncher in close and he does a great job of putting his shots together.
In the co-feature, unbeaten heavyweights Magomed Abdusalamov (18-0, 18 KO’s) and Mike Perez (19-0, 12 KO’s) will be putting their undefeated records on the line. Abdusalamov weighed in at 231.6 lbs., and Perez at 235.8 lbs. This is a really difficult fight to predict because both fighters are so good. Abdusalamov, 32, is a big puncher capable of knocking an opponent out with either hand. None of his previous opposition has made it to the final bell, and that shows you the kind of power that he has. Perez has excellent power to, but he’s very skilled and capable of throwing a lot of punches. He doesn’t have the same height or power that Abdusalamov has going for him, but he more than makes up for it with his nonstop attacking style. Perez will have to walk through a lot of hard punches from Abdusalamov if he’s going to want to win this fight.
The fight card will be televised by HBO tomorrow night.
Official Weights from New York:
Gennady Golovkin: 159.6 lbs.
Curtis Stevens: 159.25 lbs.
Mike Perez: 235.8 lbs.
Magomed Abdusalamov: 231.6 lbs.
Comments are closed.