By Victor Salazar
New York - HBO Sports Executive Peter Nelson remembered the day when the Managing Director of K2 Promotions, Tom Loeffler, walked into his office with Kazakh middleweight Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (33-0,31 KO's).
Loeffler told Nelson that Golovkin would be the next pay-per-view star - and now three years have passed since his crushing debut on HBO, and Golovkin enters the pay-per-view waters for the first time.
“When Tom Loeffler introduced me to Gennady Golovkin, he told me he’d be a pay-per-view star,” Nelson told BoxingScene.com. “He told me it would only be a matter of time. ‘We’ll fight the best, who’s number one just bring them I’ll show them’, and that’s why he’s gotten to this point.”
Nelson feels that the numbers don’t lie and that Loffler’s reasoning was not farfetched especially with the ticket sale figures for the PPV unification against David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KO's) on October 17th at New York's Madison Square Garden.
“Gennady is a highly marketable fighter,” said Nelson. “The ticket sales show you the magnitude that people want to pay for this fight. So if you can’t be in Manhattan, I think even the pay-per-view is priced affordable if you can’t be in Manhattan for this fight.”
Nelson was keen on giving Loeffler credit for the rise of Golovkin and also paring up Roman ‘Chocolatito Gonzalez as a part of Golovkin’s undercards. The paring seemed to work this past May at the Forum in Los Angeles, and now Gonzalez will be in the co-main event once again when he faces Brian Viloria on the Golovkin-Lemieux PPV.
“Loefler and Mr. Honda (Gonzalez’ promoter) had the foresight of the pairing of two knockout friendly fighters who are on the pound for pound lists. Those are the type of fighters that fans truly want to see. To see two fighters like that, it’s truly a wonderful thing and pairing. The energy in the arena at The Forum was a winning combination. It was an incredible night of fights. I hope that the pairing continues to happen in the future.