Watching footage of his brutal battle with Gennadiy Golovkin has only further convinced Sergiy Derevyanchenko that he did enough to win it.
Golovkin defeated Derevyanchenko by unanimous decision in their 12-round fight for the then-unclaimed IBF middleweight title, which was stripped from Canelo Alvarez. Judges Frank Lombardi (115-112) and Eric Marlinski (115-112) scored seven rounds apiece for Golovkin, but judge Kevin Morgan gave Golovkin credit for only a one-point win (114-113) on October 5 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Derevyanchenko, who overcame a first-round knockdown, doesn’t agree with them.
“I’ve had some time to go back and watch it,” Derevyanchenko told “The PBC Podcast” co-hosts Kenneth Bouhairie and Michael Rosenthal for their newest episode. “And I felt it was really close, but I do feel that I won that fight.”
Even though his showdown with Golovkin left Derevyanchenko with a second professional defeat on his record (13-2, 10 KOs), the Ukrainian contender knows he won some fans that night by displaying surreal resilience versus the hard-hitting Golovkin. Derevyanchenko bravely battled through a nasty gash around his right eye for nine-plus rounds and thoroughly tested Kazakhstan’s Golovkin (40-1-1, 35 KOs) in a spectacular slugfest BoxingScene.com named its “Fight of the Year” for 2019.
“It means a lot to me,” Derevyanchenko said. “I know that my popularity increased [from] that fight. But I trained so hard for that fight. I prepared so hard for that fight. I feel fairly good with my performance. That fight was in October, and while it’s in the [background] right now and it’s behind me, it’s just so much motivation to even work harder to prove to everyone that I do belong with that competition and that I am a world champion.”
Derevyanchenko “would love a rematch,” but the 2008 Olympian isn’t exactly expecting it to happen.
The 38-year-old Golovkin likely will make a mandated defense of his IBF belt next against Poland’s Kamil Szeremeta (21-0, 5 KOs). If a heavily favored Golovkin wins a bout he had planned prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, he could meet Mexico’s Alvarez (53-1-2, 36 KOs) for the third time in his following fight.
“It was in the contract when we signed to fight [Golovkin] that actually the winner of this fight was gonna fight the mandatory [next],” Derevyanchenko said. “And that’s what Golovkin is gonna do right now.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.