By Edward Chaykovsky
Gennady Golovkin (36-0, 33KOs) is preparing for a tough fight when he returns to the ring on March 18th for a scheduled defense of his IBF, IBO, WBA, WBC middleweight titles against mandatory challenger Daniel Jacobs (32-1, 29KOs). The fight takes place at New York's Madison Square Garden.
Golovkin's trainer, Abel Sanchez, does not expect this contest to go the distance. Golovkin has a knockout streak going with his last 23 opponents failing to go the distance. His last opponent, Kell Brook, was stopped in five rounds and he suffered a fractured orbital bone.
Jacobs has won his last twelve fights, all by knockout, since losing his only career fight - also by knockout - at the hands of Dmitry Pirog in 2010.
While Jacobs is viewed by many as the toughest opponent of Golovkin's career, Sanchez is expecting business as usual with a dramatic knockout ending.
Sanchez fully agrees with the viewpoint of Jacobs being the toughest opponent that Golovkin will face to date, but he doesn't believe that Jacobs is capable of lasting the distance.
According to Sanchez, there are very few fighters, from junior middleweight to super middleweight, who can last the distance with Golovkin. There are only three fighters between those three divisions that Sanchez believes can last the distance with GGG - and those three include former middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Andre Ward and retired former super middleweight champion Carl Froch.
"I said a long time ago that I didn’t think anybody from 154 to 168 could go twelve rounds with Golovkin, maybe besides Ward and Chavez and maybe even Froch, but everybody else Gennady knocks out. Those three guys are probably the ones that could withstand and are big enough and have the kinds of styles that would keep Golovkin from knocking them out. But everybody else gets knocked out before the twelfth," Sanchez told On The Ropes Boxing Radio.
