By Dan Ambrose: WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (25-4, 18 KO’s) may never get a fight against WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez or WBO champion Peter Quillin due to their reluctance to get in the ring with him, but it’s possible that we could see a fight between Golovkin and former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in the near future.
That’s the opponent that Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions wants Golovkin to face, and he’s willing to have Golovkin move up in weight to the 168 lb. division to make the fight happen because Chavez Jr. obviously can’t make 160 lbs. anymore.
Loeffler said this via ESPN “Longer-range, Gennady has always wanted to fight [Sergio] Martinez, Chavez Jr. Chaves says he can’t make 160 pounds anymore, which is fine. We would fight him at 168 if that’s what he wants. Gennady believes he is the best middleweight champion right now and he wants to prove it.”
I believe Chavez Jr. would take a beating from Golovkin and get stopped by the 8th or 9th rounds, if Chavez Jr. could even make 168. I don’t think the fight would happen if Chavez Jr. needed to have the weight bumped up to the 170s like he did in his last fight against Brian Vera.
A fight between Golovkin and Chavez Jr. wouldn’t be for Golovkin’s next fight on February 1st. That’s going to be a different opponent because Chavez Jr. has a rematch coming with Brian Vera in the first part of 2014, and he’s not going to be able to walk away from that fight given how poorly he fought in their fight last September in winning a controversial 10 round unanimous decision. Chavez Jr. appeared to lose the fight but the judges gave him the victory.
As for Golovkin’s next fight in February, he’s going to likely have someone like Martin Murray or Andy Lee, if they can convince one of them to take the fight by waiving a lot of money at them. Lee said last night that he’d be willing to fight Golovkin in two more fights, so it’s not likely that he’ll agree to fight Golovkin in February unless they can talk him into it by offering him a ton of money. Without HBO televising Golovkin’s February fight, they might not be able to get enough money to lure someone like Lee into taking the fight. Murray would be a good opponent, but he too might not be willing to take the fight unless he can get a good payday.
Golovkin bludgeoned fringe contender Curtis Stevens for 8 rounds to get a stoppage last night in the 8th round at Madison Square Garden in New York. Golovkin knocked Stevens down in the 2nd round with two hard left hooks to the head. The fight was over at that point for all intents and purposes because Stevens went into the full retreat mode from that point on. He retreated around the ring from rounds 3 through 8, taking a lot of hard shots from Golovkin and only occasionally landing a hard shot of his own. While Stevens was able to last longer than Golovkin’s recent opponents, it was only because Steven’s did a better job of absorbing his blows. In terms of offense, Stevens did very little in the fight and was mostly just soaking up the shots from Golovkin. Stevens was unable to mount his own offense because each time he’d come forward to land something, he’d get nailed by a big left hook or right hand from Golovkin, and that would sent him backwards in retreat.
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