By Kenneth Friedman: Gennady Golovkin is looking considerably thinner and more ripped than ever for his next fight against Canadian Steve Rolls on June 8 at Madison Square Garden in New York. Golovkin (38-1-1, 34 KOs) appears to have taken off 10 to 15 pounds of the excess fat. GGG’s body has a different look to it from the way he looked in his last fight against Saul Canelo Alvarez on September 15th last year.
Judge for yourself:
GGG noticeably more ripped for fight with Steven Rolls pic.twitter.com/vqtqjA1wjK
— Mike Coppinger (@MikeCoppinger) May 28, 2019
How do we say this delicately?
Golovkin must be worried since his loss to Canelo last September. Or maybe he just wants people to stop saying he’s chunky, and not the fighter he once was? Either way, there will be no excuses if he fails to impress against Rolls. GGG has no room for excuses in fighting a guy of this caliber. He has to win and impress at the same time, which might not be easy to do if he’s weak from having dropped weight.
With the amount of weight that GGG has taken off, he doesn’t look as powerful as normal. Maybe that won’t matter against a fighter of Rolls’ class? Rolls is Golovkin’s tune-up fight to get him ready to face Canelo Alvarez in a trilogy fight in September. Canelo had his own soft tune-up fight against Rocky Fielding last December. Fielding held the WBA ‘regular’ super middleweight title at the time Canelo fought him, but it was a tune-up fight nonetheless for the Mexican star.
Golovkin was at his best when he was lean
Looking back at Golovkin’s past fights, he was at his best six years ago when he was totally ripped for matches against the likes of Matchroom Macklin, Gabriel Rosado and Nobuhiro Ishida. Golovkin’s physique started changing in 2015 when he started putting fat, which clearly visible when looking at his upper body. Around the same time, Golovkin stopped being the explosive knockout puncher he’d been before. The question is, can Golovkin get back to the form that he showed six years ago?
GGG’s two fights with Canelo Alvarez showed that he needs to take out all the stops to revert back to the fighter that he was before. That’s one of the reasons why Golovkin added new trainer Johnathon Banks to his team to help him take his career to the next level.
“It’s very important for me [to win decisively] because everybody wants to watch a third fight with Canelo and everybody wants more of the emotion and reaction we know will be part of that,” Golovkin said to the latimes.com. “This is business. I’m approaching it as if I have an appointment in September with Canelo.”
Golovkin is confident that he’ll get the trilogy fight with Canelo Alvarez in September. Golovkin’s fight against Rolls will have a lot to do whether he’ll get the fight with Alvarez in September. He won’t get the fight if he doesn’t beat Rolls, and he still may not get the fight if he struggles.
