golovkin667 By Dan Ambrose: The mega-fight between WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) and IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs) is a done deal for October 17th at Madison Square Garden, in New York, according to Dan Rafael.

Needless to say, this is a huge fight of epic proportions for Golovkin, Lemieux and for boxing fans. It’s a fight that pits two huge 160lb punchers against each other, and promises to be action-packed from start to finish. The fight will be televised on HBO pay-per-view, which makes a lot of sense because a great fight.

Destructive forces about to collide :) can u feel the excitement!!

— David Lemieux (@lemieuxboxing) July 23, 2015

It’s interesting that Golden Boy Promotions has decided to make the Lemieux-Golovkin fight now rather than having Lemieux take the easier option of defending against the winner of the IBF eliminator between Tureano Johnson and Eamonn O’Kane. It’s a smart decision by Golden Boy because Tureano Johnson likely would have beaten O’Kane, and that would have put Lemieux in a very difficult fight against Johnson. While Lemieux would likely go into that fight a slight favorite, Johnson would have a very good chance of beating Lemieux. If I were Lemieux’s promoter, I would have opted for the sure thing money against Golovkin rather than chance it by having him fight Johnson.

Done deal: GGG-Lemieux 160 unification fight. Oct. 17 on HBO PPV from Madison Square Garden. Bombs away! #boxing

— Dan Rafael (@danrafaelespn) July 25, 2015

The Golovkin-Lemieux fight will at least give boxing fans a chance to see how good Golovkin is. If he can beat Lemieux and do it with ease, it’s going to be a strong indication that Golovkin is for real. Not surprisingly, a lot of boxing fans still think Golovkin is little more than hype due to the weak opposition he’s faced during his career. It’s not that he and his promotional team have purposely set out to fight soft opposition. It’s just ended up that way due to Golovkin having problems getting fights against the other top middleweights like Andy Lee, Peter Quillin, Daniel Jacobs, Miguel Cotto and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. I included Canelo’s name in that bunch because he rehydrates into the 170s for his fights at junior middleweight, and his last three fights have taken place a catch-weights of 155lbs, which is in the middleweight division. If Golovkin can beat Lemieux to capture his IBF title, Golovkin will then have two of the four 160lb titles, and he’ll on the verge of winning a third middleweight title as soon as he can get a crack at the winner of the Cotto-Canelo fight. Even if they choose not to fight Golovkin, he’ll be given the WBC title after it’s stripped from the winner of the Cotto vs. Canelo clash if they don’t vacate the belt first.

Lemieux recently won the IBF 160lb title last June in beating Hassan N’Dam in their fight for the vacant IBF title. Lemieux knocked N’Dam down four times in the fight, but still didn’t win by wide scores. When Lemieux wasn’t knocking N’Dam down, he was losing rounds to him over and over, especially in the second half of the fight.

Golovkin is coming off of a 6th round knockout over popular ESPN fighter Willie Monroe Jr. in his last fight.