Gennadiy Golovkin’s return to the middleweight division comes with his next assignment in tow.
BoxingScene.com has confirmed that the WBA has formally ordered a title consolidation clash between Kazakhstan’s Golovkin and Erislandy Lara. Both sides were notified Friday afternoon to enter an assigned 30-day negotiation period and reach a deal by no later than October 23 to avoid a purse bid hearing.
Golovkin is the unified WBA ‘Super’ and IBF middleweight titlist, while Lara holds the WBA ‘World’ (Regular) title.
“The WBA has made the decision attached to such resolution and to rule C.11, which states that the champion must defend his championship against the official contender 120 days after winning the title,” Carlos Chavez, chairman of the WBA Championship Committee noted in a letter to both fighters, a copy of which was obtained by BoxingScene.com. “GGG won the title last April 9 by defeating Ryota Murata, so the deadline expired last August 8 and he must face the Cuban in his next fight.”
Should the fight go to a purse bid hearing, Golovkin would be entitled to the favorable end of a 75-25 split as the Super champ.
Golovkin (42-2-1, 37KOs) inherited Lara as a mandatory challenger upon stopping Murata in the ninth round of their April 9 title unification bout in Saitama, Japan. The 40-year-old Kazakh boxer defended his IBF belt while claiming the WBA ‘Super’ title with the win.
The WBA refrained from ordering Golovkin to next face Lara (29-3-3, 17KOs), due to an existing deal in place calling for the two-time unified middleweight titlist to face Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez (58-2-2, 39KOs) in a long-coveted trilogy clash. The fight took place on September 17 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, where Alvarez won a twelve-round, unanimous decision to defend his undisputed super middleweight championship.
Golovkin moved up in weight for the fight, thus leaving his middleweight title reign unaffected. However, the granted exception to face Alvarez in lieu of a mandatory title defense came with conditional approval from the WBA who reminded Golovkin that he would have 120 days to next face Lara.
“The [WBA] granted a special permission to [Golovkin] to move up a division and fight Saul Alvarez on September 17, with the condition that he would return to middleweight to face Lara and would not be granted another special permission,” specified Chavez.
Lara claimed the secondary WBA ‘World’ (Regular) middleweight title following a first-round knockout of aspiring contender Thomas ‘Cornflake’ LaManna last May 1 in Carson, California. The Cuban export previously served as a secondary WBA junior middleweight titlist, vacating the belt in favor of remaining at middleweight. He has since made one successful defense, an eighth-round knockout of Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan on May 28 in Brooklyn, New York.
Should either side refuse to go through with the fight, their title will be vacated and the middleweight division finally left with one recognized WBA titlist.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
ADD COMMENT VIEW COMMENTS (63)