By Eric Baldwin: WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders has targeted middleweight champ Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in 2017 after he takes care of business on Saturday night against Artur Akavov at the Lagoon Leisure Centre in Glasgow, Scotland. This is the first of what Saunders hopes is many more defenses of his WBO title.
We’ll soon see if he’s got what it takes to get beyond one successfully defense. A win for Saunders over Akavov is almost assured, as the Russian was picked out from near the bottom of the World Boxing Organization’s rankings. However, this will be the last easy fight for Saunders for some time, because he’s either going to need to take a unification next or face his mandatory challenger, which could be Saul Canelo Alvarez or Avtantil Khurtsidze.
Saunders is definitely going to be facing a very good opponent in his first fight in 2017. It might not be Golovkin though, because he’s expected to be facing WBA ‘regular’ middleweight champion Danny Jacobs in March. If Golovkin takes that fight, it would mean that Saunders would need to wait for him until July. That’s a long time to wait for someone who will be taking his first fight this Saturday night in one year when he faces the 30-year-old Akavov.
Saunders said this to espn.com about Akavov and a potential fight against Golovkin:
“Nothing comes easy in boxing and I’m definitely not taking Akavov for granted,” Saunders said. “He’s a strong fighter and very dangerous and if I don’t come in 100 per cent then he could cause an upset in my first title defence. I’m ready to fight him [Golovkin] where ever, in England, in America or in a field. There’s nothing that can get in the way of stopping this. I’m not pricing myself out; I will fight any man born. He’s a good puncher, a good puncher and has a good chin. But he’s a man and he’s definitely beatable.”
Saunders might be hoping that his stock goes up even in losing to Golovkin. We saw that recently with IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook moving up in weight to fight Golovkin at middleweight last September. Despite Brook losing by a 5th round knockout to Golovkin, his popularity increased in the boxing world. The only thing that Brook had to do was fight hard and finish on his feet for his stock to increase.
Saunders can definitely do the same. If he lets his trainer know ahead of time to throw in the towel when it starts looking like he’s in trouble, then he can finish on his feet without being put down. That’s a win-win situation for Saunders. He gets a good payday fighting Golovkin and his stock rises despite losing his WBO title.
Saunders, 27, already had a chance to fight Golovkin earlier this year, but he is said to have turned down an offer of £2.2 million for the fight. It’s doubtful that Golovkin’s management will be able to offer more than that for a fight that would wind up on regular HBO Championship Boxing in the States. For Golovkin to fight someone on HBO pay-per-view, he needs a big name like Saul Canelo Alvarez. Saunders doesn’t have the name recognition in the U.S for Golovkin to fight on PPV. For that reason, the offer that was given to Saunders very likely won’t increase much if at all. If Saunders is interested in making the most money possible, he might need to wait on a fight against Canelo Alvarez.
Saunders has been out of the ring for a long time since his win over Andy Lee in December 2015. A fight against Akavov might have been an easy thing for Saunders while he was still sharp, but the ring rust could negatively affect him in this fight. That would be bad news for Saunders, because he could potentially lose to the southpaw Akavov. Even if Saunders wins, if he struggles to beat Akavov, the boxing fans will notice and his stock will drop. Akavov is not a major player in the sport, so Saunders won’t be able to just scrape by this fight with a narrow in without him taking a lot of criticism from the fans.
Saunders has the worst year of his career in 2016 with him suffering injuries one after another that caused one fight against Max Bursak to be canceled and his fight against Akavov to be postponed. Akavov had paperwork problems that caused another postponement. Before Saunders scheduled a fight against Akavov, he turned down a fight against American Gabriel Rosado for the undercard of the Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Liam Smith card on September 17.
That’s an opportunity that would have given Saunders a chance to show off his talent to the U.S fans on HBO PPV. However, Saunders didn’t like the idea of fighting Rosado, who he sees as a journeyman, and he reportedly couldn’t get a guarantee from Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy Promotions that he would get a fight against Canelo. The fight against Akavov is the equivalent of a fight against Rosado. In hindsight, Saunders probably should have taken that fight rather than choosing Akavov.