By Ryan Burton

Newly crowned WBO super middleweight champion Gilberto "Zurdo" Ramirez (34-0) has been very vocal in expressing his desire to face hard hitting WBC/WBA/IBF/IBO middleweight champion Gennady "GGG" Golovkin (35-0, 32KOs).

Last month when Canelo Alvarez vacated his WBC middleweight title, Ramirez's coach told BoxingScene.com that they would be willing to face Golovkin not long after his July 23rd title defense against Dominik Britsch of Germany.

What makes Ramirez so willing to face Triple G when so many others have expressed zero interest in facing the knockout artist?

Ramirez's promoter, Bob Arum of Top Rank, believes that Ramirez's confidence stems from the time they spent training together at Golovkin's coach Abel Sanchez's gym, The Summit, in Big Bear, Calif. 

"I really believe that as you said, they have trained together and when fighters train together - even though training is not the same as the fight - pretty well they figure the other guy out and he is very confident on how well he'll do against Golovkin," Arum told BoxingScene.com.

Arum had previously told BoxingScene that he's spoke with Golovkin's promoter, Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions, and says they have a deal in principle to have their fighters collide in 2017.

"Well the plan with Ramirez is he defends his title against the German (Dominik Birsch) on July 23rd on the Crawford-Postol card and then we will have him fight in the fall in another title defense and if all goes well - I've been talking to Tom Loeffler about Golovkin challenging Ramirez for the super middleweight title - and we have a deal in principle," Arum told BoxingScene.com.

"Obviously Golovkin would rather fight Canelo but he's coming to the realization that Canelo, despite the act that he put on after his last fight inviting Golovkin into the ring, has absolutely no intention to fight Golovkin and the true Mexican warrior - the guy who would not hesitate to go in the ring with Golovkin - with a good chance to beat Golovkin, is Zurdo Ramirez."

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