By Tim Fletcher: Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions has five potential future opponents for his fighter IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) to fight starting with WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
As the entire boxing world knows, Golovkin wants to unify all the middleweight titles first in fights against Canelo and WBO title holder Billy Joe Saunders. If those fights fail to happen or even if they do, Loeffler says he would like to match Golovkin against the following fighters: Daniel Jacobs, Gilberto Ramirez and Bernard Hopkins.
Loeffler needs to recognize that the 51-year-old Hopkins doesn’t have two or three years to wait on Golovkin before he takes the fight. If Loeffler wants to match Golovkin against Hopkins, then he pretty much needs to make that happen this year, preferably after Golovkin’s title defense against Dominic Wade (18-0, 12 KOs) on April 23.
Hopkins hasn’t fought since November of 2014 in his one-sided 12 round decision loss to Sergey Kovalev. Hopkins is fighting both age and inactivity. I doubt that the fight would even be sporting if Loeffler and Golovkin wait much longer to take the Hopkins fight. He just turned 51 in January and he still has no fights scheduled after being out of the ring 15 months.
“The priority would be Canelo or a unification fight with (WBO ruler) Billy Joe Saunders but Bernard is another one,” Loeffler said to RingTV.com. “If we can’t get one of those fights, if we can’t get a Danny Jacobs type of fight or [Gilberto] Ramirez then Bernard. He’s a legend. It would be a huge name for him. He’s physically much bigger than Gennady. Bernard has never been stopped in his career. Gennady has a long knockout streak, so you’d have two forces coming together and that’s a very interesting fight.”
I think Golovkin would be better trying to get fights against unbeaten super middleweight contender Gilberto Ramirez, Jacobs or Saunders rather than fighting Hopkins. If Golovkin is going to move up to light heavyweight to fight anybody, then it should be guys like Andre Ward, Kovalev, Atur Beterbiev, or Adonis Stevenson.
Fighting Hopkins wouldn’t be fair because of his age. Golovkin needs to stick to younger fighters if he wants to gain the respect from the boxing world because the last thing he needs to be seen as is a guy that goes after older fighters in order to get easy paydays.
Thanks to @TheGarden for hosting the #GolovkinWade press conference yesterday. Can't wait to fight in #NYC again. pic.twitter.com/TpLNcrVySy
— Gennady Golovkin (@GGGBoxing) February 19, 2016
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is interested in matching Gilberto Ramirez up against Golovkin if Ramirez wins his next fight against WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham on April 9. I’m not sure if Ramirez can win that fight, but if he does then it could be an easy money fight for Golovkin if he chooses to face him.
If Golovkin is going to wait until he unifies every one of the middleweight titles before he faces other fighters like Hopkins, Jacobs and Ramirez, then it could take years before he faces those guys. Golovkin might get a fight against Canelo in September to try and win his WBC middleweight title, but it’s doubtful that the WBO title holder Billy Joe Saunders is going to give Golovkin a shot at his title anytime soon. Saunders realizes how badly Golovkin wants hius WBO title, and because of that, he’s going to ask for a huge price for the fight. K2 Promotions likely won’t be able to come up with enough money to get Saunders in the ring to fight Golovkin. Saunders obviously sees it as a very tough fight that likely won’t go well for him. That’s why he’s probably not going to agree to a fight against the Kazakhstan fighter.
Hopkins would be a good option for Golovkin if he were still fighting and staying active. But with Hopkins doing nothing inside the ring since his loss to Kovalev, it makes no sense for Golovkin to take the fight with him. There’s no real upside in fighting a 51-year-old guy that’s been out of the ring for a year and a half.
Golovkin might not get past Canelo later this year. I wouldn’t be surprised if Golovkin loses that fight.
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