By Steve Kim
For the first time since 2012, unified middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) will be fighting just twice in a calendar year. Golovkin, who is scheduled to face Daniel Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) on March 18th at the Madison Square Garden, will try and rectify that in 2017.
"Hopefully, hopefully, three times or four times, it's very possible," said Golovkin this past Saturday afternoon at the Renaissance Hotel where a small media gathering was held to announce his upcoming fight. "March, maybe June, September and December. It's the plan, big plan for next year."
Golovkin, who knocked out Dominic Wade and Kell Brook this year, was slated to face on December 10th but as the negotiations for the Jacobs bout lingered, this date was tabled and the decision was made to move this fight to the spring. The hope is that he will eventually face Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez next September.
Despite his December date being kiboshed, Golovkin still went up to Big Bear, California to stage a training camp with Abel Sanchez.
"He's one of those throwback fighters who likes to train and when he's not training, it's not that he's bored but then he has a lot of free time so he definitely appreciates spending time with his family but at the same he understands his career, there's a certain amount of years and that's why he was pushing in the beginning to fight as many times as possible,'' said Tom Loeffler, the managing director of K2 Promotions.
"When he had the slow down when he left Universum and I had to get creative. When we were going to Monte Carlo, going to Ukraine to fill in the time between our HBO dates and now he's become one of the marquee fighters for HBO - where he had the highest rated show this year. He's just looking for a huge 2017 to make up for only two fights in 2016."
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com
