Gennady Golovkin vs. Thomas Oosthuizen at 168

[Clegg]

Oosthuizen and his team initially turned down a 164lb catchweight fight saying that they wouldn't be able to make the weight so Golovkin said **** it and agreed to 168.

Golovkin is everything good about boxing but is confronted with everything bad about it having carefully managed fighters unwilling to fight him because he's viewed as too much risk. Martinez, Chavez, Geale, Quillin, Sturm, N'jikam and a long list of contenders all unwilling.

Yeah, we expect boxers to be willing to fight anyone, anywhere, yet when someone is they just get ****ed around and put into ****** fights like this.

The guy is a MW champion who can fight at 154, so they ask him to fight a prospect at 168, ridiculous.

[the_ilest]

Likely on HBO January 19.

http://www.goldengloves.co.za/boxing-news/tommy-gun-to-top-madison-square-garden-bill/

Golovkin is a powerful but small middleweight and has no business at 168. Oosthuizen is a talented young supermiddleweight who doesn't need an KO loss at this point in his career.

HBO ruins fighters from other countries by putting them in bad matchups. The had Ricky Hatton move up a weight division to fight a southpaw Collazo, Sergey Dzinziruk move up to fight Sergio, and talented up-and-comer Gregorsk Proksa fight Golovkin instead of a beatable opponent.

All those guys want to be on HBO in the US, so they'll agree to it.

Golovkin should fight a top middleweight. Oosthuizen should get another year's experience at 168 and then take a lucrative fight with some of the names in that weight division.

Same thing happened to Martinez. He fought margarito on HBO. Good ol marg beat the crap out of Martinez. But look now, Martinez is at the top.

[The Hammer]

Yeah, we expect boxers to be willing to fight anyone, anywhere, yet when someone is they just get ****ed around and put into ****** fights like this.

The guy is a MW champion who can fight at 154, so they ask him to fight a prospect at 168, ridiculous.

That sums it up perfectly.

Green K.

[intoccabile]

Thomas is quite bad, at this point. He'd be broken down regardless of the size difference. Probably easier because of it. Easy to hit, long guy (6'4") who doesn't shy from the inside. It's a bad move for GGG because having a strap at 168 isn't wise for a man his size, but it's a winnable one. He's the easier of all the champs at 168. It would be ahuge step up for Thomas regardless of the advantages he has and he'd lose.

[The Hammer]

According to figosport, Golovkin's opponent will either be Edwin Rodriguez or Oosthuizen.

http://www.figosport.de/profiboxen/2993-golovkin-trifft-am-19-januar-auf-oosthuizen.html

[-PBP-]

So he's fighting 168 pounders?

Guess its the only weight class where he can find guys to fight him.

[Earl-Hickey]

This is just bizarre

Oousthuizen should have taken the froch fight imo

And agree with Tunney that hbo **** over foreign fighters while protecting hype jobs like berto

[TheKza]

Who cares about the weight, Golovkin is willing to fight anyone anywhere. Appreciate that.

[mathed]

Oosthuizen is pretty good from what I've seen. I think his height and jab is going to present some issues for 3G. This may not be the fight for him at this point in his career if he is trying to be marketed as a superstar......he may not look so impressive in this kind of a fight.

[mathed]

Yeah, we expect boxers to be willing to fight anyone, anywhere, yet when someone is they just get ****ed around and put into ****** fights like this.

The guy is a MW champion who can fight at 154, so they ask him to fight a prospect at 168, ridiculous.

Sounds like the Martinez storyline.