By Carlos Boogs
Abel Sanchez, the trainer for WBO/IBF/WBA middleweight champion Gennady "GGG" Golovkin (34-0, 31KOs), is hoping to have his fighter back in action as early as February.
Golovkin was in the ring this past Saturday night, when he stopped David Lemieux in eight rounds to unify the three middleweight belts at New York's Madison Square Garden.
Promoter Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions is looking to have his boxer as busy as possible in 2016. Golovkin has been averaging three to four fights per year since his HBO debut.
Golovkin is now the mandatory challenger to the winner of next month's fight between Miguel Cotto and Saul "Canelo" Alvarez, who battle for the WBC middleweight championship. That fight takes place on November 21 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
Facing the winner of that fight will require several months of promotional time. February would obviously be too soon for a fight of that magnitude.
Golovkin would have to get permission from the World Boxing Council to avoid losing his mandatory position to the Cotto-Canelo winner next.
"I would love for him to fight some time in February. If it’s not against one of those two guys, then against somebody else. Hopefully that’s allowable by the WBC. It's up the management and its up to the promoter to put that together and I hope its done," Sanchez said.
One possible option is highly rated contender Tureano Johnson (19-1, 13KOs).
Johnson put in a good performance on the Golovkin-Lemieux undercard, where he won a lopsided twelve round decision in an IBF eliminator over Eamonn O'Kane.
"I thought he fought a great fight. Of course he’s rated really high in the organization. We'd love to fight him. If they could put it together, then this could be our next fight,” Sanchez said.
