By Terence Dooley

In a year of left field fights and right-wing politics, news that consensus middleweight titlist Gennady Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) is set to meet IBF welterweight holder Kell Brook (36-0, 25 early) at London’s O2 Arena on September 10 was met with mixed reactions.

Golovkin was due to meet Chris Eubank Junior in a middleweight title defence.  The venue was booked, Sky Sports Box Office came onboard and everything seemed good to go.  Then Eubank, acting through his father "English" Eubank Senior, made one demand too many and promoter Eddie Hearn was left with no choice but to look at another option.

And what about the options?  Some have asked why, if he is now seeking fights against names from a lower weight, Team Golovkin did not look at Erislandy Lara or Demetrius Andrade.  Two good names, but both are unlikely to help sell out a U.K. arena.

You can save them for his next U.S. outing, as it is unlikely to be Saul Alvarez, now en route back to light-middleweight versus WBO holder Liam Smith.

As is often he case in boxing, on the hoof pragmatism prevailed.  Hearn was dealing with the Eubanks, who presumably demanded one blue M & M too many in their rider, but he also handles IBF holder Kell Brook, so why not pull a Rubicon moment, split the difference and make Golovkin-Brook for the middleweight titles?

Hearn did just that, the date, venue and, crucially, the Sky Sports Box Office slot remained intact and all organisations have a subordinate Championship clause that states (roughly) 'You know we have all these rules, right?  Well, we have one rule that states a committee decision can overrule all other rules’, so the fight was sanctioned

The IBF and the other bodies, the WBA, WBC and IBO, all consented to a classic ‘welter steps up to middle’ match-up and Eubank was left out in the cold, calling out the winner of the fight despite having called for and lining up the probable winner of said fight.  Only in boxing, right?

Brook doesn’t care either way, he walks around at a weight much higher than the artifice of his “One moment on the scales only” 147lbs incarnation so the step up to 160 versus a natural at that weight is a risk worth taking.

“Ezekiel” no longer has to sweat off the pounds.  Eubank is left sweating on his next move after uniting bitter rivals Hearn and Frank Warren, both of whom probably longer want to work with him, and must know that the winner will have bigger, world-class names on his plate, so where does he go from here?

That is the background.  Here in the foreground, both Golovkin and Brook took to the dais in New York today to promote their encounter.  Or at least that was the hope, the stream failed, as most things in boxing do, and only the quick thinking of BoxingScene’s Victor Salazar saved the show as he streamed the presser via his Periscope feed.

“I look forward to matching wits and strategies with the two best trainers in the U.K.,” stated Abel Sanchez, Golovkin’s trainer.

“I’ve taken this man from smaller arenas to beating Shawn Porter in his own backyard,” added Eddie Hearn when introducing Kell Brook.

“I’ve looked down in history and the greats, and he’s one of the greats in history,” argued Brook, keenly aware of his underdog status.  “This is going to be a very hard fight.  I’ve got to be spot on in training to come up with the goods.  We’re going to go through hell in this training camp, but that’s what you have to do to reach greatness.”

He added: “When this fight was offered, I jumped at it.  The fans pay our wages so I wanted to give something back to them.  I’m ready to take this.”

“I want to thank the fans for their support,” chimed Golovkin.  “This fighter is very good, very strong, the best in his division—it is the biggest test for me and the biggest fight, so watch it on TV.”

And that was that.  Both fighters went into the face off before meeting various press outlets, all the while the Youtube stream kept up its relentless ‘The streamer stopped streaming’ teaser tagline while fans argued about the fight in the background.

It may have had an inauspicious beginning yet, weight be damned, Golovkin against Brook is as good as it gets for either man right now, in the U.K. and at a date that was set long before Chris Eubank Senior, or son, vetoed the fight for, well, whatever reasons they gave.

As has been previously stated, it may not be Hagler versus Hearns, Duran or Leonard, but it should be interesting on the night.  And that’s all we can ask for.  That and working satellite link, this is 2016 after all.

Please send news and views to @Terryboxing.