By Jake Donovan
Gennady Golovkin has done his part to build towards a mandatory title fight with Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez, demolishing unbeaten but overmatched challenger Dominic Wade in two rounds Saturday evening in front of a sold-out crowd at The Forum in Inglewood, California.
Next up in the pecking order is Alvarez' voluntary title defense versus welterweight contender Amir Khan. Their middleweight championship bout will be contested at a maximum catchweight of 155-pounds, serving as the main event of an HBO Pay-Per-View headliner live from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The winner of the May 7 headliner will have 15 days to negotiate terms with Golovkin, as per the mandate set forth by the World Boxing Council (WBC), whom recognizes Alvarez as its middleweight champ and Golovkin - who owns three other belts - as its interim middleweight titlist and mandatory contender.
The industry-wide belief is that Alvarez - assuming he beats Khan - will ultimately dump the title and continue to campaign at CaneloWeight, thus allowing a Golovkin showdown to marinate well into 2017.
With that projected to be the case, the unbeaten, unified middleweight titlist will need somebody to face in the meantime.
The World Boxing Association (WBA) will push for its "super" champ, Golovkin to defend versus "regular" titlist Daniel Jacobs. Also looming is World Boxing Organization (WBO) middleweight titlist Billy Joe Saunders, who has already once before paused on the possibility of facing the unbeaten Kazakh knockout artist.
The fight for which HBO is already pushing is one that has Golovkin moving up in weight to face newly crowned super middleweight titlist Gilberto Ramirez. The unbeaten boxer recently made history in becoming Mexico’s first-ever contestant to claim a 168-pound belt following a landslide victory over Arthur Abraham earlier this month.
Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum believes that between Ramirez’ fighting style and handsome looks, a star is in the making. He’s also told anyone who would listen for the past several months that he’d favor his kid over Golovkin whenever they met in the ring.
Not everyone within the HBO family is on board for such a matchup, however.
It's widely agreed that Ramirez - or really anyone being suggested as next in line - poses a much greater threat than was the case with Wade. Still, it shouldn't automatically serve as grounds for a Golovkin fight.
"It would be more interesting than the challenge we saw (on Saturday versus Wade), for sure. But it's not going to be much more interesting yet, because that guy doesn't have a lot of experience either," HBO expert analyst and former four-division champ Roy Jones stated of a Ramirez-Golovkin matchup in 2016, his opinion in stark contrast to that of head blow-by-blow man Jim Lampley during post-fight discussion. "For that guy to step in and take on GGG right now, would almost be unfair to him.
“He's going in against, pound-for-pound one of the best fighters at all time in the middleweight division. He hasn't had the opportunity to prove himself as a champion in the super middleweight division. Give him a chance to develop himself, to develop his skills. Then bring him to GGG, because GGG ain't going anywhere. So let this guy develop and THEN bring him to GGG.”
It was countered by Lampley that – while Golovkin is already among the best two or three fighters in the world, pound-for-pound – what you see is what you get with the long-reigning middleweight titlist, who has made 16 defenses of at least one belt within his current 22-fight knockout streak. With that in mind, wouldn’t Ramirez be best served to strike now, rather than risk losing his super middleweight title before such a fight could materialize?
“No he would not,” Jones insisted during the telecast. “He has to learn how to avoid that situation for 12 rounds. That's what experience does. Avoiding for one or two rounds, he's OK. But avoiding for 12 rounds - you saw Chocolatito (unbeaten World flyweight king Roman Gonzalez) go 12 rounds (on Saturday). You saw (challenger McWilliams Arroyo) do alright for 2-3 rounds.
“Once Chocolatito turned that level up from warm to hot, it got real hot in there. Once you get to that level, you have to learn how to keep that hot button on “warm”. Once (the button) gets to “hot”, you're in trouble.”
Jake Donovan is the managing editor of BoxingScene.com.
