Golovkin's Coach: DeGale at 168 Was Fine, Hearn Offered Brook

By Radio Rahim

According to Abel Sanchez, trainer for WBC/WBA/IBO/IBF middleweight champion Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (35-0, 32KOs), they would have gladly fought IBF super middleweight champion James DeGale (23-1, 14KOs) on September 10th.

Golovkin's handlers were negotiating for weeks to finalize a fall fight with British middleweight champion Chris Eubank Jr. The fight fell apart after Eubank Jr. was unable to reach an agreement with his promoter, Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport.

When Eubank fell out, Hearn offered the opportunity to another fighter in his stable, IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (36-0, 25KOs). Brook quickly accepted and the match was finalized in 48 hours time. Brook will move up by thirteen pounds.

But if Hearn would have offered up another fighter in the Matchroom stable, like DeGale - Golovkin would have gladly accepted the contest and moved up to super middleweight to challenge DeGale for his title, according to Sanchez. 

A fight with DeGale would have been a one-off appearance at super middleweight. Win or lose, Golovkin would have moved back to 160-pounds to continue his pursuit of the WBO middleweight title, which is currently held by Billy Joe Saunders.

"If Eddie Hearn would have said to [Golovkin's promoter] Tom [Loeffler], when Eubank wasn't available, 'would you fight DeGale if DeGale was available' - we would have fought DeGale. But it just happened to be that [Hearn] spoke to Brook and Brook accepted - but we would have fought DeGale, at 168, because at that point it was nine weeks away from the fight," Sanchez told BoxingScene.com.

"It's very hard to go in and negotiate for three weeks when you are nine weeks away from a date. We had the 10th, the date of the 10th [of September on HBO]. It got to the point where that waste of time with the Eubanks was unable to get replaced. Those weeks that we wasted talking with them."