By Jake Donovan

It didn’t take very long for Gennady Golovkin to make an impression on the boxing public. Apparently he has left him imprint on the rest of the middleweight division, as getting his peers into the ring has proven to be his biggest challenge to date.

Five years after capturing his first title, the unbeaten rising superstar from Kazakhstan finally enters his first true unification bout. David Lemieux was brave enough to answer the call, as the pair of middleweight titlists put a bunch of belts on the line October 17 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, which airs live on HBO Pay-Per-View ($49.95 SRP).

Regardless of anyone’s thoughts on Lemieux’s chances in the fight, the fact that he’s willing to put his title is enough for Golovkin (33-0, 30KOs) to hail this as “the most important fight of my career since I won the WBA title in 2010. I have always wanted to unify all the belts and that’s why I give a lot of respect to Lemieux for being the first champion to fight me.”

Even the first belt that Golovkin won came about due to the unwillingness of other champions to step to him. An interim version of the World Boxing Association (WBA) title was made available when its full claimant, Felix Sturm didn’t express much interest in stepping to him.

That very lack of desire extended all the way into Sturm’s unification bout with Daniel Geale, in which Geale claimed a split decision win. The unification part of the win didn’t last very long, as the WBA belt was immediately turned over to Golovkin.

In an era where fighters insist it has to make dollars in order to make sense, Golovkin has emerged as among the most marketable figures in the sport today. His long-standing relationship with HBO – which began with his Sept. ’12 knockout win over Grzegorz Proksa, ironically on the same day but on the other side of the world as Sturm-Geale – has removed the excuse of not enough money being on the table, to where potential “name” opponents have either overpriced their own value or rejected the fight altogether.

Lemieux (34-2, 31KOs) was given enough incentive to agree to terms. With that comes the division’s first true unification in three years. Given the number of top middleweight fights scheduled to take place over the next 10 weekends, there’s no reason that October 17 can’t serve as Ground Zero for the best in the division to face one another until there’s one middleweight left standing. 

“This fight is very important to me to prove who is who and who is the best middleweight,” insists Golovkin. His status as a WBC interim titlist also allows for Saturday’s victor to get first dibs at the winner of the Nov. 21 blockbuster clash between Miguel Cotto and Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez.

Pairing the winners of those two fights would already settle that debate. If Golovkin gets his way, though, the series won’t end until all of the belts – and the scalps of said title claimants – are in his sole possession.

“Bernard Hopkins was the last middleweight to unify all four titles when he beat Oscar De La Hoya in 2004,” notes Golovkin. “This inspires me to do the same. Bernard was a champion for many years in the middleweight division and I have a great respect for him.”

Jake Donovan is the managing editor of BoxingScene.com.

Twitter: @JakeNDaBox

Facebook Page: JakeBScene