By Allan Fox: For boxing fans who didn’t purchase the Gennady Golovkin vs. David Lemieux fight on HBO PPV last Saturday night for whatever reason, they can see the replay next Saturday night on regular HBO Boxing on October 24th.
The Golovkin-Lemieux & Roman Gonzalez vs. Brian Viloria coverage will start at 9:30 p.m. ET/6:30 p.m. PT. This will be part of the Terence Crawford vs. Dierry Jean fight, which will be shown live.
Lemieux used the wrong fight strategy against Golovkin by fighting in his normal low crouching style, and this made it easy for the taller Golovkin to nail him with jabs all night long.
The fight was stopped in the 8th round after Golovkin hurt Lemieux with a body shot and then landed a brief barrage of punches that led to referee Steve Willis stopping the fight.
Golovkin took a big step in cementing his position as the best middleweight in the division. By beating Lemieux, Golovkin is now within one fight of proving that he’s the best fighter in the 160lb division. Golovkin just needs to defeat the winner of the Miguel Cotto vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight to put himself as the No.1 fighter.
There would technically still be the winner of the Andy Lee vs. Billy Joe Saunders and Daniel Jacobs vs. Peter Quillin still left for Golovkin to fight, but those guys aren’t seen by many boxing fans as in the same class as Canelo, Golovkin and Cotto. Those three fighters are the true talents in the 160lb division in the view of a lot of fans. Quillin, Jacobs, Saunders and Lee are all flawed in their own different.
“Whoever wins that fight will clearly will be at the top of the sport, as Gennady is. Gennady has more belts than the winner of that fight, and it would be a huge unification fight for 2016. The plan is to see what happens Nov. 21,” Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler said to ESPN.com.
The winner of the Cotto vs. Canelo fight will have a little over two weeks to make a decision whether to face Golovkin or give up the belt. If the winner doesn’t commit to the fight within 15 days after their November 21st fight, they will be stripped by the World Boxing Council if they don’t choose to vacate the title first.
Golovkin wants to face the winner of the Cotto-Canelo fight because the fame and money he would get would be huge compared to anything he’s done in the past. His fight with Lemieux attracted a great deal of interest, but nothing compared to the attention Golovkin would receive for fighting the winner of the Cotto vs. Canelo fight. A fight against Canelo would be really huge for Golovkin because Canelo has so many fans in the U.S.
“My goal is all the belts in the middleweight division,” Golovkin said. “I’m a boxer, not a businessman. I want all the belts. I want to bring my fans big events. [Cotto and Canelo are] both great champions. I want who wins.”
It would be a real disappointment if the Cotto vs. Canelo winner chooses to go in another direction than Golovkin in order to play it safe and continue to fight the guys that they want to fight. Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya already said this weekend that he’d like to match the beaten Lemieux against Canelo.
You would have to think that if De La Hoya and Canelo decide not to fight Golovkin, they could look to face Lemieux because it’s the easiest fight to make, and it would bring in a lot of attention.
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