By Keith Idec
It would make the most sense for Gennady Golovkin to align himself with DAZN.
The fight Golovkin wants most, a third bout against WBA/WBC middleweight champ Canelo Alvarez, would require Golovkin to agree to have that bout streamed by DAZN. Demetrius Andrade, the newly crowned WBO 160-pound champ, also fights exclusively on DAZN and Daniel Jacobs, the new IBF middleweight champ, could sign with DAZN now that his fights no longer will be broadcast by HBO.
Tom Loeffler and representatives for DAZN have been discussing a deal for Golovkin to fight on DAZN now that HBO is in the process of moving away from televising boxing. Loeffler also has had discussions with Top Rank president Todd duBoef regarding Golovkin fighting on ESPN as part of Top Rank’s partnership with that network.
Top Rank founder Bob Arum hopes that’s still a possibility, even though the ESPN fight Golovkin wanted recently fell apart. Golovkin (38-1-1, 34 KOs) won’t able to fight former WBA world middleweight champ Ryota Murata at Tokyo Dome now that Rob Brant has upset Murata to win that title, but Arum has another idea for the former middleweight champ from Kazakhstan.
“He could do what Canelo’s doing,” Arum told BoxingScene.com. “He could go up to super middleweight and fight the winner of Gilberto Ramirez-Jesse Hart. Him against Ramirez would be a big pay-per-view fight. That would be a great fight.”
Golovkin, 36, has considered moving up from middleweight to super middleweight in the past, but he has remained at the middleweight limit of 160. Fighting at super middleweight might be something Golovkin strongly considers if Alvarez (50-1-2, 34 KOs) remains at 168 pounds following his fight against WBA world super middleweight champ Rocky Fielding (27-1, 15 KOs) on December 15 at Madison Square Garden.
Regardless, Arum is holding out hope Golovkin will want to fight on ESPN.
“Well, we’d love it,” Arum said. “But that’s up to Tom Loeffler and that’s a question that’s best addressed to Tom. But there’s no question that we, at ESPN, would love to have Golovkin fight on our platform.”
Mexico’s Ramirez (38-0, 25 KOs) and Philadelphia’s Hart (25-1, 21 KOs), who lost a close unanimous decision to Ramirez 13 months ago, are expected to fight again December 14 for Ramirez’s WBO super middleweight title.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
