Golovkin's Manager Talks Rubio, Cotto, Soliman

By Gregory Stangrit

WBA/IBO middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (30-0, 27KOs) is training hard for his fight with WBC interim-middleweight champion Marco Antonio Rubio on October 18th in Carson, California. Following the official announcement of this fight AllBoxing.Ru/BoxingScene.com spoke to Oleg Hermann, who manages Golovkin, regarding numerous subjects related to his fighter.

BoxingScene/AllBoxing: There were negotiations with Soliman, but he eventually signed to face Jermain Taylor, stating that is was an offer that he couldn't refuse. Although it is now clear that Soliman could have made more against Golovkin in a higher profile fight, what were the reasons for the fight falling apart?

- With Soliman we negotiated immediately after his victory over Felix Sturm and you can tell that they had agreed on 99% [of everything]. Sam Soliman wanted to fly out to our fight on evening of July 26 in New York to watch the fight with Geale. At the last moment he got an offer to fight with Taylor, and instantly changed his opinion about the fight with Gennady. And to us, to put it mildly, it was an unpleasant surprise. The reason lies on the surface - he knows what his chances are of winning against Taylor and what they are against Gennady. He wants to make a fight with Taylor, and then oppose GGG.

- Rubio is the interim-champion of the WBC and it was decided [by the WBC] that his fight with Golovkin will be a unification. Would the interim-belt increases the chances of a fight with Cotto or force Cotto to vacate the belt in order to avoid a fight with Golovkin?

- We are very pleased to have reached an agreement with Rubio. At the moment, he is temporary champion of the WBC. But, in addition, he is very well known in America and especially in Mexico, which is the most important thing. In fact, Rubio in terms of taking the next step forward - he is much more interesting than Soliman. The WBC belt opens other doors and provides new opportunities, and, in addition, we have long wanted to fight on the West Coast of the United States in front of the Mexican audience.

In fact, we would like to make a big fight against the winner of Cotto-Canelo.  But these are the future plans. Until then we are entirely focused on the fight with Rubio.

Gregory Stangrit covers boxing for Allboxing.ru.