By Allan Fox: WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez thinks it’s high time that WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (51-2-2, 28 KO’s) agrees to fight Golovkin so that they can find out who the best fighter is in the 160 lb. division. Sanchez thinks that a certain percentage of the boxing fans still see the 38-year-old Martinez as the top fighter in the middleweight division despite the fact that Golovkin has looked a lot better than him in the last year and that Martinez starting to show serious signs of decline.
Sanchez told Fightnews.com “I don’t think Sergio wants to fight him. He [Sergio] better move up and fight him or get out.”
I don’t think Sergio has any intention on fighting Golovkin or even WBO champion Peter Quillin. It looks like Sergio is looking to milk his WBC title for the biggest fights he can get in terms of money before he gets out of the sport, and Golovkin and Quillin don’t appear to be on his agenda. Sergio is coming off of a knee and hand injury from his last fight against Martin Murray last April. Sergio isn’t expected to fight again until Spring of 2014, and when he does return to the ring it’ll likely be against Miguel Cotto or Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. It’s going to be one of those fights. If it’s not them, then Sergio will fight former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Sergio’s career is pretty much down to three fighters unless Floyd Mayweather Jr. decides he wants a fight against him.
Sanchez is going to have to be satisfied with the fact that the hardcore boxing fans pretty much all see Golovkin as the top fighter at 160. Casual fans probably still see Sergio as the top guy, but that’s only because they don’t know enough about the sport to see that he’s aged and isn’t fighting at the same level that Golovkin is right now.
It’s unclear if Sergio might decide to fight Golovkin if he gets beaten by Cotto or Canelo. There’s a possibility that Sergio might want to fight Golovkin at that point because he’ll have been beaten and will no longer be the WBC middleweight champion. However, it won’t be worth much for Golovkin to fight Sergio at that moment because he’ll be seen as a an old timer, and that will keep Golovkin from getting full credit for beating him like he’d get now if they were to fight.
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