By Keith Idec

LAS VEGAS – Gennady Golovkin’s 2017 calendar could include two intriguing fights the Kazakh knockout artist and most boxing fans want.

Even if Golovkin-Danny Jacobs and/or Golovkin-Canelo Alvarez don’t happen next year, Golovkin’s handlers plan for him to fight four times during those 12 months.

“Golovkin will fight in March,” Abel Sanchez, Golovkin’s trainer, said. “And then he fights in June again. He fights in Kazakstan. And Golovkin will fight in September. And Golovkin will hopefully fight in December. If it’s one of the guys we mentioned, great. If it’s not, we’re gonna fight. He’s 34 years old.”

Jacobs, Alvarez, WBO middleweight title-holder Billy Joe Saunders and retired former super middleweight champion Carl Froch were “the guys mentioned.”

Tom Loeffler, managing director for K2 Promotions, has been negotiating on Golovkin’s behalf with Jacobs’ representatives for a March bout that likely would take place at Madison Square Garden or Barclays Center. That’s the fight Loeffler, Sanchez and Golovkin want next, but if Jacobs isn’t satisfied with the eventual final offer and passes on what would be a multimillion-dollar payday, Team Golovkin will have to find another opponent for that date.

According to the proposed stacked schedule Sanchez divulged, Golovkin ideally would box once between bouts against Jacobs in March and Alvarez in September, presumably against a lesser opponent. Golovkin’s agenda obviously would change if Jacobs upsets him in March, but if Golovkin beat Jacobs this schedule would allow him to get back to being one of the few star boxers committed to fighting more than twice per year.

Golovkin, who’ll turn 35 on April 8, has remained very active since he introduced himself to American fight fans in his HBO debut by knocking out Grzegorz Proksa in September 2012.

The long-reigning middleweight champion fought four times in 2013, three times in 2014 and three times in 2015, but just twice in 2016. Neither of those fights – knockouts of Dominic Wade and Kell Brook – lasted beyond the fifth round.

If he fights Jacobs in March, Golovkin, because he knocks out opponents at such a high rate (92 percent), will have completed just 17 rounds in the four fights since he stopped England’s Martin Murray in the 11th round two years earlier.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.