Sergio Martinez: Golovkin is Above Canelo, He is King at 160

By Miguel Rivera

Retired former two division world champion Sergio Martinez was once the king of the middleweight ranks.

Since his retirement last year, a new group of middleweights have emerged to take over the scene.

There are two men standing at the top, WBA/IBO/IBF middleweight champion Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (34-0, 31KOs) and WBC middleweight champion Saul "Canelo" Alvarez (46-1-1, 32KOs). 

Right under them is WBA 'regular' middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs and WBO champion Billy Joe Saunders.

Coincidentally, Golovkin is the mandatory challenger to Canelo's world title. The World Boxing Council has allowed the two of them to take interim-bouts before facing each other in the fall.

Golovkin defends his titles against Dominic Wade on April 23rd at The Forum in Los Angeles, while Canelo takes on Amir Khan on May 7th from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Martinez was at one time being pushed to face Golovkin, but the fight never happened. Instead he faced Miguel Cotto in June 2014 and was stopped in a one-sided bout. Cotto was unseated last November by Canelo.

Martinez views Golovkin as the king of the entire division and holds him in a higher position over Canelo, but at the same time he has some concerns with the hard-puncher's defensive abilities. He feels Golovkin takes too many punches and that will eventually be his downfall in the years to come.

"Golovkin is above Canelo. He is the king of the middleweight division, he is much more solid [than Canelo]. But the thing with Golovkin is that he takes a lot of punches and at some point he is going to start breaking, but presently he is the strongest of them all [at 160]," Martinez told Albert Perez.