In a perfect world, Sergiy ‘The Technician’ Derevyanchenko would have preferred to face both Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez and Gennadiy ‘GGG’ Golovkin.
The fact that he’s facing one in place of the other doesn’t bother the 33-year old middleweight contender, though, considering that he doesn’t differentiate between the two.
“They are two great fighters,” Derevyanchenko (13-1, 10KOs) notes of Alvarez and Golovkin, regarded by most industry observers as the two best middleweights in the world today. “I can’t tell you which one is better at the moment.”
A chance to unseat one of the two comes this weekend, as Derevyanchenko and Golovkin (39-1-1, 35KOs)—a 2004 Olympic Silver medalist and record-tying former middleweight titlist from Kazakhstan—collide for a vacant middleweight belt at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Their bout—which will air live on DAZN—came about shortly Alvarez (52-1-2, 35KOs) relinquished his title from failure to secure a mandatory title defense versus Derevyanchenko, who represented Ukraine in the 2008 Beijing Olympics but now lives and trains in Brooklyn, New York.
“I was being considered for the Canelo fight. My first concern was my fight with Jack Culcay,” points out Derevyanchenko, whom outpointed Germany’s Culcay in their title eliminator in April. “Once that fight was over, I was just waiting to see who would give me the opportunity, but it didn’t matter to me who I fought.”
Interestingly, it comes against an opponent who also previously vacated a title in lieu of securing a mandatory title defense versus the squat contender. Golovkin was in a position to face Derevyanchenko last fall, but chose to give up his title in order to move forward with plans for a far more lucrative rematch with Alvarez.
Derevyanchenko wound up fighting for the vacant title, dropping a heartbreaking split decision to career-long stablemate Daniel Jacobs last October at MSG’s Hulu Theater.
As for Golovkin, he would lose a majority decision to end his title reign at a record-tying 20 successful defenses, exactly 52 weeks after having to settle for a heavily criticized split decision draw. The general consensus is that Golovkin deserved to win the first fight and that the rematch either should have went his way or been ruled a draw.
Derevyanchenko isn’t quite in that camp.
“I thought that Golovkin won the first fight, I thought he was a little bit stronger,” notes the top-rated contender.” For the second fight, I agreed with the outcome. I thought Canelo won the fight.
“They were both very close fights.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
