By Sean Jones: Eddie Hearn wants Gennadiy Golovkin to fight Jaime Munguia next. Hearn feels that would be a good fight for both guys, particularly Golovkin (42-2-1, 27 KOs), because he’s been rudderless lately.

According to Hearn, Golovkin, who turns 41 years old this Saturday, hasn’t had someone doing a good job of directing his career.

Golovkin recently vacated his IBF & WBA middleweight titles, which he had initially seemed eager to hold onto after losing to Canelo Alvarez last September.

Some believe Golovkin hurt his popularity after his loss to Canelo in 2018 by fighting irregularly and only against weak B-level opposition that the fans weren’t interested in seeing him fight.

While Golovkin may have thought his opponents Kamil Szeremeta, Sergiy Derevyanchenko, Ryota Murata, and Steve Rolls were good fighters, the reality is, they weren’t guys that fans wanted to see him fight. Fighting those unknowns was a pure disaster, doing nothing for GGG’s career to keep him popular.

In the last five years, Golovkin’s popularity would still be very high if he had done the following:

1. Fought three to four times a year

2. Faced these fighters – Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade, Jaime Munguia, Jermell Charlo, Erislandy Lara, David Benavidez, Caleb Plant, Errol Spence Jr, or Terence Crawford.

“What do you think of Golovkin’s actions the last few months?” said Chris Mannix on his Volume site.

“I just think that recently and particularly now. I just think he lacks a little bit of guidance,” Hearn said about Golovkin. “He’s very experienced. He’s got a great team of people around him, but sometimes you need people steering the ship.

“When I’m talking about steering the ship, I’m talking about standing at the front, looking out at the weather and telling you where you’re going. He got into a situation, and it’s not really his fault.

“The Lara fight was called on him, and the Falcao fight was called on him, which is probably the fight that I would have taken. Gennadiy has gotten to the stage where he doesn’t need the belts, but it’s quite nice to have one,” said Hearn about Goolovkin.

“And he seems to want them. After the Canelo fight, he said, ‘I have two belts,'” said Mannix about Golovkin.

“Now he has none,” said Hearn.

“These were predictable problems to run into with the IBF mandatory,” said Mannix.

“That’s the problem with no one steering the ship. You can have people working on the ship, ‘but just to let you know,’ you have to be five or six steps ahead,” said Heearn about GGG. “So when you go into that Canelo fight, you’re already speaking to the governing bodies to have a plan in case you lose.

“Then he lost, and then the mandatory’s were called on him. Then he relinquished one, and then Lara was called on him, and he relinquishes two. Before long, he’s no longer a world champion.

“That kind of speeds up the process of retirement because then you get to the stage where you got rid of the belts and last fought in September,” said Hearn about Golovkin.

“He just turned 41 years old,” Mannix said about Gennadiy.

“We’re coming up to May, and he doesn’t have a fight scheduled. You don’t want to be fighting once a year at 41,” said Hearn about Golovkin. “So, I love the Jaime Munguia fight. I think Gennadiy would be the favorite in that fight, but it’s a great fight for Jaime Munguia.

“The problem now, and I’m just being honest, Gennadiy Golovkin is accustomed to making a lot of money. So he’s not going to come back and fight for a couple of million dollars. So you’ve got to put your hands in your pockets if you want to get Gennadiy Golovkin back in the ring,” said Hearn.