By Juan Flores: Unbeaten IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin met with replacement opponent Vanes Martirosyan on Wednesday afternoon for their final press conference for this Saturday’s contest on HBO at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
Today’s final press conference took place at the beautiful Sheraton Gateway LAX in Los Angeles, California. Martirosyan’s promoter Don King was on hand, as well as GGG’s promoter Tom Loeffler.
King let Golovkin know that he can have a rematch with Martirosyan after he loses to him on Saturday. For the record, Golovkin is a big favorite to win. If Martirosyan does beat GGG, it would be a shocker to most boxing fans, as they expect Triple G to blow the Armenian fighter out of the water on Saturday night with no questions asked.
Martirosyan, 31, is the younger guy than the 36-year-old Golovkin, and he’s coming off of a long 2-year layoff. Martirosyan should be well rested with no complaints of being overworked.
“I promise you Golovkin, we will give you a rematch,” King said. Show them what you can do in losing. The Armenian named Vanes will make history. I want you to know this is a destiny fight!”
If Martirosyan does win, it’ll be the biggest victory of his 13-year pro career. Martirosyan’s best win of his career is a 10 round unanimous decision over former junior middleweight champion Kassim Ouma in 2010. To be sure, it was an excellent victory for Martirosyan, but it also came after Ouma had been beaten in recent fights by Gabriel Rosado, Cornelius Bundrage and Jermain Taylor. Martirosyan didn’t exactly get a fresh Ouma when he was in top form and still holding down the IBF and WBC light middleweight titles.
“This event is a spiritual event. This will be an extremely exciting fight,” King said. ”You can’t knock a fighter like Golovkin. He has the desire to fight on May 5 Cinco de Mayo. This whole event I’m glad to be back on HBO. Peter Nelson is getting it. Vanes was made the mandatory challenger. We have a great fight here,” King said.
Golovkin-Martirosyan could be an exciting fight like King says, but that will depend a lot on what version of GGG we see inside the ring on Saturday night. If Golovkin fights like he did in his last two contests against Saul Canelo Alvarez and Daniel Jacobs, then we’ll see a highly skilled chess-match with both fighters boxing and moving for 12 rounds.
Golovkin has gone away from his power game in his last two fights, and become almost a pure boxer. If Golovkin fights like that on Saturday, then Martirosyan will have a decent chance of winning the fight because he can box too. Golovkin will need to do more than stand on the outside and jab if he wants to win this fight without controversy or if he wants to win period.
Golovkin was held to a 12 round draw in his last fight against Saul Canelo Alvarez last September and he only has himself to blame for failing to get the win. Golovkin was betting that his educated jab would be enough for the judges to ignore the clean-landing power shots that Canelo kept hitting him with all night long.
At the end of the fight the judges thought Canelo had done enough to earn a 12 round draw, and they were right. Canelo had done enough to get a tie out of the fight, and Golovkin had given away his only chance of winning by trying to out-box a boxer. It was a foolish mistake on GGG’s part, and it showed that he hadn’t learned from the same mistake he made in his previous fight with Daniel Jacobs last year in March. Golovkin tried the same tactics of standing on the outside and jabbing, and the judges just barely gave him the win in that fight.
“We are so happy Tom was able to keep this card. We have been well prepared. I know Edmund will have Vanes ready. Please come out,” Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez said.
There was a chance that Golovkin would lose the May 5 date after Canelo pulled out of the fight. Loeffler was able to find a replacement quickly in signing Martirosyan to step in and fight GGG. The California State Athletic Commission, WBA and WBC all agreed to sanction the Golovkin vs. Martirosyan fight. However, the International Boxing Federation chose not to.
Loeffler was able to get the IBF to agree to let Golovkin get an exception to fight Martirosyan under the condition that he must face IBF mandatory challenger Sergey Derevyanchenko by August 3. We’re still waiting to find out whether Golovkin will take that fight with him or if he’ll vacate his IBF title. We’ll find out soon what Golovkin wants to do.
If Golovkin does fight Derevyanchenko before August 3, then it will have a huge impact on the rematch between GGG and Canelo Alvarez. Golovkin will need more than 1 to 2 months to get ready for the Canelo fight on September 15. If Golovkin fights Derevyanchenko in June, then it won’t be a problem for him to prepare for the fight with Canelo. However, I don’t think Golovkin will take the fight with Derevyanchenko just 1 month after his fight with Martirosyan.
Even if Golovkin wanted to, Derevyanchenko’s promoter Lou Dibella would likely balk at the idea of his fighter being rushed into the fight with GGG. Dibella was on board with letting Derevyanchenko fight Golovkin on 3 weeks’ notice, but that was likely because he didn’t think he would agree to the fight, which he didn’t. But if Golovkin chooses to fight Derevyanchenko in June, then he obviously will be serious about that fight and it’ll be too much of a rush job for the Ukrainian fighter to face GGG on such short notice.
“This has been a challenging promotion,” Loeffler said. From Golovkin-Canelo at T-Mobile to Golovkin-Vanes at StubHub. The whole card flipped upside down. The whole dynamic of the card changed. We want to thank Vanes and his team for stepping up to the challenge. Gennady really wanted to fight and thank HBO and StubHub for saving the date,” said Loeffler.
The undercard for this Saturday’s GGG-Martirosyan fight isn’t that good. There are some boxing fans have complained about it on social media.
Here are the main undercard fights for Saturday:
• Cecilia Braekhus vs. Kalio Reis
• Ryan Martin vs. Briedis Prescott
• Ruslan Madiev vs. Jesus Perez
• Jesse Rodriguez vs. Armando Vazquez
• Brian Ceballo vs. Nam Phan
”This is my destiny fight,” Martirosyan said. ”This is everything I have dreamed of. Triple G and I will put on a good fight. I can’t wait for Saturday. Don King, thanks for believing in me. We’ve done all the talking. Now we will do the fight,” Martirosyan said.
This could be Martirosyan’s destiny fight. All he needs to do is make sure he lands at least three clean shots in each round, and that might be enough for him to impress the judges to give him the victory. I have to believe that GGG will be fighting defensively like he did in his last two fights against Canelo and Jacobs, because I question whether Gennady has the heart for mixing it up. Golovkin says he wants to fight use the Mexican style, but he doesn’t do it. Golovkin talks but then he boxes like Floyd Mayweather on the outside.
Golovkin even blamed Canelo after the fight for him failing to use the Mexican style when it was him that was standing on the outside jabbing all night long. If Golovkin fights like he’s afraid of getting hit on Saturday, then Martirosyan will win going away.
”This is not an easy fight,” Golovkin said. ”We have a big fight. Vanes is a good fighter. I promise we will put on a good show. We bring a good gift to the people. I feel this is a world class fight. He’s a completely different guy. My focus is on Vanes. If I win this fight, I will think about Canelo. Mexican style is true fight. It’s not fake. This is big gift to people,” Gennady said.
We will see if Gennady will fight with the ‘Mexican style’ on Saturday night, but I don’t think he will. Golovkin has never fought with the Mexican style. He still uses his Easter European style of fighting that he learned while growing up in the amateur system in his home country of Kazakhstan. He’s not going to change that style for anything. What I noticed is Gennady has adopted a lot of Mayweather’s fighting style in his game by staying on the outside and just jabbing all night long. It’s boring to watch, and that’s why he’s no longer knocking guys out and looking exciting.
