Golovkin Focuses on Middleweight Legacy, Canelo in Rearview

Jake Donovan

For the first time in the past couple of years, Gennady Golovkin can look forward to a next fight without having to worry about chasing another name or title.

Having been teased with the possibility of landing a fight with a big divisional draw only to be constantly stranded at the altar, the unbeaten and unified middleweight titlist can now focus squarely on his own legacy. No longer will his next assignment have to carry a sidebar of it leading to a potential fight with yet another top boxer unwilling to face him in the near future.

Somehow, Golovkin has racked up 16 title defenses along the way, the latest coming in a two-round destruction of unbeaten but overmatched mandatory challenger Dominic Wade this past April. His next bout is still being worked on, but targeted for late summer and to once air live on HBO. None have come against any of the World (lineal) middleweight champions – Sergio Martinez, Miguel Cotto and now Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez - whose reigns have coincided with his tour of collecting alphabet belts.

That won’t change anytime soon, not as long as Alvarez remains lineal champ and his team claims that a “verbal agreement is in place” for a time frame more than a year away.

Should the two actually meet in September 2017 (pretending for a moment that such a conversation actually took place and was agreed upon by both sides), there stands a chance that Golovkin could be closing in on – if not surpassing – the mark for most consecutive successful middleweight title defenses.

The current record is 20, held by Bernard Hopkins who is a stakeholder with Golden Boy Promotions (Alvarez’ promoter). It took the legendary boxer from Philadelphia 10 years (1995-2005) to amass that number before losing back-to-back debatable decisions to Jermain Taylor.

Golovkin (35-0, 32KOs) has managed 16 in just six years, all of which have ended inside the distance. The scary part is that it could be even more had he not agreed to go six months between his last two fights, doing so only because he and his team – including K2 Promotions – were led to believe the next one would be an owed mandatory title fight with Alvarez in September.

With that fight no longer a reality for 2016 or anytime in the near future, Golovkin can return to a preferred schedule of remaining as active as possible. Talks have swirled of a return for either August 27 or September 10. The latter date would actually precede the next planned ring appearance for Alvarez, who faces unbeaten 154-pound titlist Liam Smith on September 17, likely in Las Vegas.

Meanwhile, Golovkin’s next bout could very well take place in Smith’s home land of England. Talks remain ongoing for a potential showdown with second-generation middleweight Chris Eubank Jr., whose father Chris Sr. is the famed former two-division champ who was an integral part of the United Kingdom boxing scene in the 1990s.

Naturally, Eubank Jr. aspires to enjoy the same boxing lifestyle, especially in what has served as a golden era for UK boxers at the major title level. Strangely, he could instead wind up as a footnote as Golovkin continues to expand his brand worldwide. Already a box-office attraction on the East and West Coast in the U.S., the 34-year old from Kazakhstan is looking to take his talents abroad.

With a summertime win, there exists the possibility of squeezing in one more fight before year’s end. The same has been said of Alvarez’ plans, with HBO – while declining comment on the subject – apparently in a position to accommodate the schedules of both star athletes.

Where a third fight in 2016 would take place (date and location) remains unknown as Golovkin’s team have chosen to just focus on finalizing his next fight before looking too far down the road.

That said, finding a date will always be of greater concern than where any of his fights land – whether in the U.S, or even in his home country of Kazakhstan, where HBO recently visited to film a documentary on the rising superstar.

As one HBO rep recently put it, “We are happy to explore anything with Gennady Golovkin, including fighting on the rings of Saturn.”

Jake Donovan is the managing editor of BoxingScene.com. Follow his shiny new Twitter account: @JakeNDaBox_v2