By Keith Idec

Count Bob Arum among those that think Gennady Golovkin began showing his age against Daniel Jacobs.

The 85-year-old Arum was in full promotional mode Friday, when during a conference call Arum claimed that Gilberto Ramirez would “destroy” Golovkin if they fought. Arum’s company, Top Rank Inc., promotes Ramirez and has been trying since last year to generate interest in a Golovkin-Ramirez super middleweight match as a Plan B for Golovkin if Mexican superstar Canelo Alvarez won’t fight him.

The conference call took place Friday in part to promote an April 22 pay-per-view card that’ll feature Ramirez in one of four TV fights. Mexico’s Ramirez (34-0, 24 KOs) is scheduled to defend his WBO 168-pound title against Ukraine’s Max Bursak (33-4-1, 15 KOs) as part of that show at StubHub Center in Carson, California.

If Ramirez beats Bursak, Arum expects him to make a mandatory defense of his title against the WBO’s No. 1 contender, Jesse Hart (21-0, 17 KOs), sometime in July. Philadelphia’s Hart also needs to win his April 8 fight against Alan Campa (16-2, 11 KOs) to remain title contention.

If Ramirez defeats Bursak and Hart, and the Alvarez-Golovkin fight doesn’t come off in September, Arum hopes to put together a Golovkin-Ramirez match sometime later in the fall. The 6-feet-2 Ramirez’s size advantage over the 5-feet-10 Golovkin and the challenges he’d present as a southpaw could make for an intriguing fight.

“The fight Gilberto wants, assuming he’s successful in this [April 22 fight], is against Triple-G,” Arum said during the conference call. “And I would agree to fight that fight winner-take-all. I think Ramirez destroys Golovkin the same way that he destroyed Arthur Abraham.”

The 25-year-old Ramirez soundly defeated Armenia’s Abraham (45-5, 30 KOs) to win the WBO world super middleweight title last April 9 in Las Vegas. All three judges scored their 12-round fight 120-108 for Ramirez.

Golovkin obviously is a fresher, better fighter than Abraham, but Arum has noticed slippage in the undefeated Kazakh knockout artist, particularly in his tougher-than-expected, 12-round, unanimous-decision win against Jacobs on March 18 at Madison Square Garden. When asked Friday if Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs), who’ll turn 35 on April 8, is starting to slow down, Arum said, “Yeah, we all do. Even me, I’m 85. I’m showing my age. But yeah, sure he is. There’s no question.

“There’s a great Eddie Housman poem [about] an athlete dying young. An athlete’s life is relatively short.”

Ramirez had left Friday’s conference call to start a sparring session by the time Arum made his provocative comments about Golovkin. He did discuss the possibility of fighting Golovkin with BoxingScene.com a few weeks ago, though.

“I would have to use all of the skills I have against him,” Ramirez said. “It’s a really, really tough fight. It would be really interesting for all the people, for all my team, for everybody.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.