Ranking the Best Options for Gennady Golovkin's Next Fight
No one learned much Saturday night that they didn’t already know.
Gennady Golovkin is a big-time middleweight. Gennady Golovkin enjoys knocking people out. And HBO, which televises Golovkin’s fights to a swelling fanbase in the United States, enjoys having him.
The Kazakh-born slugger wasn’t forced to put his IBO/WBA shares of the 160-pound fiefdom on the line because foe Marco Antonio Rubio failed to make 160 pounds at Friday’s weigh-in, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still in the mood to put on a California-sized show in his first West Coast appearance.
In fact, Golovkin ticked his career KO percentage up to 90.3—28 stoppages in 31 fights—and stretched an active wins-inside-the-distance streak to 18 with a sudden second-round finish of the 34-year-old Rubio, who’d arrived with a six-fight win streak of his own since a decision loss to Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in 2012.
The only hardware that changed hands with the result was the suspect WBC “interim” title at middleweight, which Rubio had held since defeating Domenico Spada in April, after he’d agreed to step aside to let then-WBC champ Sergio Martinez go ahead with a lucrative bout with Miguel Cotto.
The win elevates Golovkin to the perch of mandatory challenger to Cotto’s crown, even though Cotto has been far more often linked with fellow former 154-pound champ Canelo Alvarez for a possible showdown in the spring. Tom Loeffler, managing director of K2 Promotions, which works with Golovkin, said the pursuit of Rubio had everything to do with a goal of ultimately unifying the division’s titles.
"Rubio is clearly the best move at this time for GGG and will lead to the winner of Cotto/Canelo fighting him or vacating the WBC title. ... Rubio would have beaten Sergio at 160 in that last fight, and that is why they paid him a step-aside fee to avoid his mandatory obligation so they did not risk the Cotto fight.
The goal for Gennady is to unify the middleweight division titles, so we have to go step by step and that made the most sense with Rubio being the interim champion and mandatory for Cotto.
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The Rubio win was another violent step toward bigger and better things for Golovkin, and here are a handful of possibilities most likely to be discussed as next-in-line between him and 32-0 next year.
Got an opinion of your own? Feel free to register your views in the comments section.
4. Carl Froch
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It wasn't long ago that Floyd Mayweather Jr. asked the fans to decide whether he should fight Marcos Maidana or Amir Khan and then went ahead and fought the Argentine after the masses picked the Englishman.
Keep that in mind when considering the prospects of Golovkin hooking up with perpetual super middleweight title holder Carl Froch, who left it to Facebook to choose between Golovkin, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and James Degale for his next go-round.
Golovkin was a narrow winner in that August poll, picking up 13,995 likes to Chavez's 12,113 and 7,842 for Degale. The powers that be behind the two men have reportedly been in contact about a potential match—either in London or Las Vegas—with the latter becoming a possibility because of the 37-year-old Froch's previously stated desire to fight in the sport's Nevada capital before he hangs up the gloves.
3. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.
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The prospect of second-generation Mexican star—and former middleweight title claimant—Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. mixing it up with Golovkin seemed very real earlier this year, when all systems appeared go before a Chavez dispute with Top Rank knocked things off track.
Chavez claimed Top Rank mandated a contract extension in order to get the fight done, a scenario he claimed he was not comfortable with, even while claiming he was amenable to the idea of the matchup.
"...I can still fight him," Chavez told BoxingScene.com. ... "I was really excited to fight with Golovkin because everyone wants to see that fight. He is a great fighter, and people are speculating who can handle him and that has to be someone who has good chin - and that's me."
The behind-the-scenes intrigue isn't quite over. Chavez claims he's a promotional free agent as of this month, while Top Rank believes it has one more fight on the contract.
2. Canelo Alvarez
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The names have floated around for years, but the intrigue was truly cranked up over the summer, when promoter Oscar De La Hoya claimed his marquee property, Canelo Alvarez, was considering Golovkin as a possible next opponent.
"GGG is a dangerous fighter," De La Hoya said, per Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated. "That's what Canelo is about."
De La Hoya's remark came two days after Canelo had overcome a difficult style clash with Erislandy Lara, and nothing that's happened since has poured any water on the concept.
Alvarez's move from Showtime to HBO eliminates any premium cable-network conflict, and there are few matchups that would deliver more intrigue if Alvarez is truly set on reclaiming Cinco de Mayo from Floyd Mayweather Jr.
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1. Miguel Cotto
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Regardless of the fervor surrounding the author of an 18-fight knockout streak stretching back more than six years, there's one label Golovkin has not yet secured when it comes to the 160-pounders—the man who beat the man. That distinction falls instead to Miguel Cotto, who became the consensus middleweight king in June after battering Sergio Martinez into submission across nine one-sided rounds in midtown Manhattan.
With the crushing defeat of Rubio, Golovkin has put himself into a unique position of holding two belts in a division while positioning himself as the mandatory challenger for the boss of another sanctioning body. It may or may not mean he's got a snowball's chance in Los Angeles of ever getting the Puerto Rican in the ring, but it does mean he's forced Cotto's hand into either taking the fight or explaining why not.
“I can’t think of anything else in sports right now that I'd rather see than a Gennady Golovkin fight,” HBO's breathless Max Kellerman said after GGG defeated Daniel Geale in July. “He continues to create demand. He’s the surest thing in pro sports.”
Golovkin called Cotto out in the ring after that summertime win, and his ascension to official next-in-line status on Saturday night puts the ball squarely in the incumbent full-fledged champ's court.
Your move, Miguel.
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