By Dan Ambrose: It looks like IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin won’t be fighting his IBF mandatory challenger Tureano Johnson (19-1, 13 KOs) in April.
The 31-year-old Johnson has a shoulder injury that will require surgery, according to Dan Rafael. This leaves Golovkin with no opponent for his April fight on HBO. WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez also doesn’t have a pay-per-view worthy opponent yet for his next fight on May 7.
Canelo needs an opponent with a big enough name for the fight to be televised on HBO PPV. Right now, the names that have been sifted through – Willie Monroe Jr., Liam Smith and Gabriel Rosado – are not big enough names for Canelo to fight them on HBO PPV. Even if those fights were on regular HBO, the ratings likely would be less than earth shattering.
Per Golden Boy Boxing, Tureano is out of potential 4/23 fight with GGG because he needs shoulder surgery. Canelo-GGG on May 7 would sell out new Las Vegas Arena in about 30 seconds. Forget interim bouts. They have nobody to fight. #makethefight,” Rafael said on his Twitter. “GGG has nobody to fight in April. Canelo has no PPV-worthy foe in May. Forget interim bouts! Do right thing: Canelo-GGG on May 7!! Do it!”
Canelo and Golovkin are both supposed to take interim fights, as Canelo was given permission to take an interim fight by the World Boxing Council before he has to sit down and negotiate a fight against Golovkin, his mandatory. However, with no appealing names for either fighter to take right now for their next fight, it makes a ton of sense for them to abandon the idea of fighting interim bouts and instead face each other.
My guess is Golovkin would jump at the chance to fight Canelo on Cinco de Mayo on May 7th in Las Vegas, Nevada. HBO would likely be more than happy to televise Canelo vs. Golovkin on PPV. However, I’m not sure that Golden Boy Promotions and Canelo would be too excited at the idea of having to fight Golovkin now rather than waiting for either September or years from now to face him.
Golovkin and his promoters at K2 Promotions attempted to fight a unification match against WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders, but the negotiations failed to produce a fight. With no options for a unification fight available to Golovkin, he might need to be satisfied with making a simple defense of his titles against the best possible opponent.
It’s doubtful that the top junior middleweights would fight Golovkin for April. K2 could offer the fight to the Charlo brothers, Erislandy Lara or Demetrius Andrade. One of them might take the fight if the money was good enough. Someone like Austin Trout might accept a fight against Golovkin if K2 could come up with enough money to interest him.
The sad reality is that Golovkin is probably going to have to defend his titles against someone like Alfonso Blanco, Dmitry Chudinov, Arif Magomedov, Antoine Douglas, Caleb Truax or Dominic Wade.
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