By Barry Holbrook: Gennadiy Golovkin is still planning on defending his IBF middleweight title against mandatory Kamil Szeremeta (21-0, 5 KOs) on March 28 on DAZN in Chicago. The fight negotiations still haven’t wrapped up, according to @MikeCoppinger.
It’s unknown what the hold up is, but it might be in GGG’s best interest to shed the anchor-like IBF belt, and focus on giving DAZN some quality fights in the remaining bouts on his six-fight contract with them.
Without Canelo, Golovkin’s fight lack the attention that they used to get. Golovkin is fighting a lot of opponents that boxing fans aren’t familiar with. For example, when you take Canelo out of the equation, these are the fighter GGG has been fighting since 2018:
- Vanes Martirosyan
- Steve Rolls
- Sergey Derevyanchenko
Pretty soon, you’ll be able to add the little known Kamil Szeremeta’s name to GGG’s list. For that reason, it’s hardly worth Golovkin keeping the IBF belt. If it means he’s stuck fighting no name fighters like Szeremeta, then he would be better off vacating the IBF strap. American boxing fans haven’t heard of Szeremeta, and that makes him a poor opponent in terms of fan interest.
Fans want to see Golovkin face Derevyanchenko again
Golovkin’s last fight against Sergiy Derevyanchenko was an excellent one with both fighters going toe-to-toe for 12 rounds. In the end, Golovkin (40-1-1, 35 KOs) won a controversial 12 round split decision to capture the vacant International Boxing Federation 160-lb title. There’s a huge demand from fans in seeing GGG and Derevyanchenko mix it up again, especially considering the fact that the results were questionable.
Derevyanchenko outworked Golovkin in every round of the fight, and had him hurt in the 5th. This was in response to Derevyanchenko suffering a bad cut in round 2. He realized that the fight was in danger of being stopped, so he turned on the heat, and went after Golovkin.
The severity of Derevyanchenko’s attack took Golovkin by surprise, and he wasn’t ready for the body shots that he was getting nailed with. Although Canelo had hit Golovkin with a lot of body shots in their rematch in 2018, it was nothing compared to what Derevyanchenko did. He had Golovkin close to being stopped in the 5th.
GGG, DAZN and Matchroom are all hoping that a trilogy fight against Canelo Alvarez materializes in September, but it remains to be seen if that match will take place. It’s best that Golovkin stay quiet about it, since Canelo doesn’t react well when he’s being pressured to fight different fighters. Canelo obviously knows that DAZN and Matchroom wants him to fight Golovkin, and he’ll likely give them what they’re asking for.
GGG vs. Szeremeta negotiations continue
Sources: Gennadiy Golovkin is slated to make his first title defense against mandatory challenger Kamil Szeremeta on March 28 in Chicago on DAZN, but not solidified yet. GGG became a two-time middleweight champ with a decision win over Sergiy Derevyanchenko in October
— Mike Coppinger (@MikeCoppinger) January 10, 2020
Golovkin chose to fight for the vacant IBF belt because Canel wanted him to have a world title before he’d fight him a third time. Although Golovkin had given Canelo a title shot when he was a belt-less challenger in 2017, the Mexican star apparently felt differently when in came to returning the favor. So instead of Golovkin being able to face Canelo as a challenger, he had to pick up the IBF belt by beating Derevyanchenko first.
In the big scheme of things, it was a waste of time for Golovkin to win the IBF belt, because he was always going to get the third fight with Canelo anyway. With the huge $365 million contract DAZN gave canelo in 2018, it makes the fight between him and GGG necessary. Moreover, there’s no one popular at 160 and 168 for Canelo to fight that will bring in the subscribers to DAZN like Golovkin can.
There is a high amount of interest from fans in seeing Canelo fight WBC middleweight champion Jermall Charlo, but that’s a fight that will be difficult to make due to the two of them fighting on different platforms.
Canelo is expected to fight WBO super middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (24-1, 14 KOs) next on DAZN on May 2, and there’s no interest from American fans in that fight. Absolutely none. Canelo might as well be fighting Rocky Fielding again.
