By Gerardo Granados: Last Saturday night at the Madison Square Garden, New York, USA, the WBA-IBO middleweight Champion Gennady Golovkin did an easy job of David Lemieux winning the IBF middleweight strap by an 8th round knockout.
On a side show that same night something happen that turned the attendance wild and it was not the great knockout that Luis Ortiz inflicted to a raw Matias Vidondo, or the sublime boxing exhibition that Chocolatito Gonzalez had versus Brian Viloria. It was no “big drama show”; no in fact it didn’t have anything to do with boxing but all with politics.
According to several sources that were present in the event, when politician Donald Trump visited Gennady Golovkin in his locker room, the loud boos in the crowd were really noisy. A friend of mine was angry and showed it on twitter, I was upset at first and thought it was a stupid move by GGG; minutes later I reconsider and thought that Golovkin had no choice but to be polite to the visitor and somehow I gave the benefit of the doubt to Gennady.
To build up a foreign fighter isn’t as easy as it seems when the fighter lacks of a magnetic personality and to try with success to gain a influential fan base might be easier if the fighter pleases the crow; but a fan base might be as a loving girlfriend who will be loyal and supportive but once she feels betrayed thing will never be the same as the beginning.
I wonder if there is a significant damaged done to the loyalty of the Mexican Fan base towards GGG. Maybe no one noticed Trump visited Gennady that night or that Golovkin feels so good for the visit. Perhaps I have started to see things that doesn’t exist but I can assure you that the hard core Mexican fight fans did noticed what happen and some will not forgive.
Many people who live outside of Mexico believe that over there boxers Canelo Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr are loved by everybody, but that is not correct at all. There are many detractors of both. So don’t expect that an adoptive favorite would have that much patience from a demanding fan base when a guy who said that likes the Mexican boxing style and speaks in Spanish at the post fight interviews then speaks high of someone who simply doesn’t like Mexican people.
Is it possible that Golovkin only cares about the business benefits he can get from the Mexican Fan base?
Did you notice that during the HBO Face Off episode with Golovkin and David Lemieux, Gennady didn’t say anything about his Mexican Style publicity stunt when Max Kellerman told him “Mexican Style I like to fight.” Neither a mention was made on Road to Golovkin-Lemieux. Did the reader notice that at the Saturday post fight interview Golovkin didn’t say a word in Spanish or make allusion to the Mexican Style. At the post fight press conference he didn’t say a word either. Is it he believes that the Mexican fan base will stay loyal and won’t give much importance that he praises a person who thinks so low of the nation fan base he has been trying so hard to earn?
I asked to Boxing Historian, Boxing Analyst and host of the Top Men Boxing Radio Patrick Connor if Golovkin statement would have hurt the Mexican Fan base and he found the question interesting. I think that one thing is that Triple G had received an unexpected visitor but to say that for him it was his favorite moment of the night makes me wonder why he would have said such thing.
I think the damage is done, be it big or small and time will tell if it is significant enough. But what about the reader, do you think Golovkin cares about the Mexican Fan base?
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