By Allan Fox: WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) looks to be in a bad position for his next fight in terms of opposition. He’s not going to get David Lemieux, Miguel Cotto, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Andy Lee, Andre Ward, Daniel Jacobs, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Tim Bradley or Carl Froch. With the IBF ordering Tureano Johnson to fight Eamonn O’Kane in an IBF eliminator bout to pick out the mandatory for Lemieux, Golovkin now no longer has the option of fighting Johnson as well.
This means that Golovkin’s next opponent will likely be one of the lower hanging fruit in the WBA’s ranking.
There isn’t anyone that Golovkin can fight that the boxing public will care about. Unless Golovkin wants to move up to 168 for his next fight to try and challenge one of the top guys in that weight class like James DeGale or Gilberto Ramirez, Golovkin will likely have to settle for fighting one of the contenders in the middleweight division.
Here are some of the options for Golovkin’s next fight unless he wants to wait until 2016 to try and get the winner of the November fight between Canelo and Cotto:
Jermall Charlo
Antoine Douglas
Tony Jeter
Jorge Sebastian Heiland
Ryota Murata
Dmitry Chudinov
Arif Magomedov
Caleb Truax
Dominic Wade
Of this bunch of fighters, it wouldn’t be surprising if most if not all of them either turn down a fight against Golovkin or are too busy to take the fight. Heiland and Charlo are arguably the best of the bunch, but they’re also not likely to take the fight.
Charlo is ranked #3 by the WBO, so he’s likely going to keep moving in that lane to get a crack at the arguably easier WBO champ Andy Lee. Heiland is ranked No.1 by the WBC, so he’s probably going to wait and see what happens with Canelo and Cotto. There’s no point in him accepting a fight against Golovkin right now.
Wade just won a controversial decision victory over Sam Soliman. Wade would be like an easier version of Willie Monroe Jr. The only thing that Golovkin would get out of fighting Wade would be a payday and the opportunity to give Wade his first real defeat of his career, even though a lot of boxing fans feel that Wade deserved a loss to Soliman.
I doubt that Wade would agree to fight Golovkin because he needs a lot more experience before he takes on a dangerous guy like Golovkin.
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