By Scott Gilfoid: IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) sure did look sensational this month in taking apart IBF 160lb champion David Lemieux (34-3, 31 KOs) in beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision on October 17th on HBO pay-per-view, but I guess he wasn’t good enough for Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn.

Hearn promotes #1 WBA contender Chris Eubank Jr. (20-1, 15 KOs), and believes that Golovkin is flawed and has weaknesses that his fighter can take advantage of when he faces him eventually in one or two more years.

Hearn says he’d like to have the fight between them take place by next year in the summer if it was up to him, but it’s not up to him. Eubank Jr’s career is being steered by his father Chris “English” Eubank Sr., who isn’t ready to let him face Golovkin yet.

“Short term is Spike O’Sullivan on December 12th, and then expect all the big names in 2016,” Hearn said to FightHype.com. “Of course right now, Golovkin looks on another level to all Middleweight contenders. He is beatable, and like every man, he has weaknesses. When Jr. is ready, he will deserve the fight as everybody else that has faced Golovkin. We have a path with the WBA and that seems to be the most logical route.”

If Eubank Jr. can win his next two or three fights, it’s likely that Hearn and “English” will be ready to let him face Golovkin. His next fight is against #11 IBF Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan (22-1, 15 KOs) in a WBA 160lb eliminator on December 12th at the O2 Arena in London, UK.

The possible next fight after that is against the winner of the December 5th fight between Peter Quillin and WBA “regular” middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs. I say possible because the winner of the Quillin-Jacobs fight might not be ready to face Eubank Jr. immediately in their next fight.

They may have him wait one to three fights, depending on what the World Boxing Association lets them get away with. I definitely don’t see the Jacobs vs. Quillin winner facing Eubank Jr. next, and they may not face him at all depending on what their adviser Al Haymon says. He could have them vacate.

I don’t think Eubank Jr. will be ready to face Golovkin even if he beats the Quillin vs. Jacobs winner. Beating one of those guys is a completely different thing than trying to beat Golovkin. But I definitely think that English will give the green light to Eubank Jr. to go ahead and fight Golovkin if he gets past the Jacobs-Quillin winner. I think the win will go to English’s head, making him think that his son Eubank Jr. can beat Golovkin, who he already feels is a flawed fighter with slow hand speed.

There are a lot of things that stand in the way of a Golovkin-Eubank Jr. fight being made; namely that Golovkin could lose to the winner of the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Miguel Cotto fight. That’s a real possibility. We could also see Eubank Jr. lose to O’Sullivan, the winner of the Quillin-Jacobs fight, or to Billy Joe Saunders in a rematch.

Eubank Jr. was beaten by Saunders last November by a 12 round decision, and he says he wants a rematch against him within 6 to 12 months. A rematch against Saunders would be a really difficult fight for Eubank Jr., because Saunders was the smarter and quicker fighter last November. It was painfully obvious from the 1st round that Saunders had the better boxing IQ than Eubank Jr. The only reason that the fight ended up being close was because Saunders gassed out in the last six rounds of the contest.

In a rematch, I see Saunders jumping out to another big lead and then likely doing enough to beat Eubank Jr. a second time. However, I doubt that English will let Eubank Jr. fight Saunders a second time before facing Golovkin, because the money will be too good for him to have Eubank Jr. take a risky fight against Saunders.

Hearn is right that Golovkin, like any fighter, has weaknesses and is flawed. But the problem is Hearn doesn’t have anyone in his Matchroom Sport stable that can beat Golovkin at 160 or 168. Golovkin would whip James DeGale in my view, and of course, he’d whip Eubank Jr. as well. We already saw what happened with Carl Froch when Golovkin tried to get a fight against him. He retired rather than take the fight.