Golovkin, Sanchez Never Discuss Golovkin Getting Knocked Down

By Keith Idec

If you wonder how Gennady Golovkin would react if Daniel Jacobs dropped him Saturday night, you’re not alone.

Not even Golovkin and trainer Abel Sanchez know what the Kazakh knockout artist would do if Jacobs were to knock him down during their middleweight title fight at Madison Square Garden. According to Golovkin, he was never knocked down during any of his 350 amateur fights, and he hasn’t been dropped in any of his 36 professional fights.

Sanchez realizes even boxers with the sturdiest chins can get hurt if they get caught with the right shot, but he doesn’t discuss getting knocked down with Golovkin or any of the fighters he trains.

“Actually no, we’ve never discussed that because I don’t believe in discussing negative things in training camp or during a fight,” Sanchez said during a recent conference call. “I just believe that as a human, you’re gonna do what your natural instincts are, what you’ve seen in your whole career, other people do.

“If you’re really hurt, then obviously you’re gonna stay down because you can’t get up. But if you’re halfway hurt, then hopefully – he has always been told that if he knocks his opponent down, he goes to a [neutral] corner and he looks at us for instructions on what to do. And hopefully, if [a knockdown] happens he would look at us and obviously we’re gonna decide in the spur of the moment what we wanna say to him, or at least motion to him.”

Golovkin also said during the aforementioned conference call that he doesn’t think about he’ll respond to suffering his first knockdown, either.

The 30-year-old Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs), whose questionable chin has helped establish Golovkin as a 7-1 favorite, is a big enough puncher to hurt any middleweight opponent. Sanchez and Golovkin don’t expect that to happen to the defending IBO, WBA and WBC 160-pound champion in this bout, but Sanchez acknowledges that anything is possible during their HBO Pay-Per-View main event.

“Every great fighter goes down,” Sanchez said. “I had a young man, who’s actually gonna come with me to the fight, gonna be a guest at the fight – Terry Norris and his wife will be at the fight. And back in the late 80s, he fought Julian Jackson. Julian knocked him out in two rounds. He did very well, but this young man’s in the Hall of Fame. He had a great career, even though he had three or four losses on his record before he won the title. So [getting knocked down is] part of the game. It’s part of this business. But again, I don’t discuss anything that’s negative with my fighters at all – ever. Until it happens, then we discuss it. But if it doesn’t happen, then there’s no reason to discuss it.”

It appears more likely, obviously, that Jacobs will be the fighter who’ll have to overcome a knockdown Saturday night. Jacobs was knocked out by Russia’s Dmitry Pirog in the fifth round of their July 2010 in Las Vegas and Sergio Mora scored a flash knockdown in the first round against Jacobs in an August 2015 bout Jacobs came back to win by technical knockout in the second round.

Meanwhile, the 34-year-old Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) will take 23-fight knockout streak into his fight against Jacobs (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT; $64.95 in HD).

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