By Rick Reeno

WBA "regular" middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (23-0, 20KOs) is all set to face EBU king Grzegorz Proksa (28-1, 21KOs) at the Turning Stone Casino in Verona, New York. HBO will televise. Golovkin was previously scheduled to face WBO champion Dmitry Pirog (20-0, 15KOs), who withdrew a few weeks ago with a back injury.

In the televised co-feature, undefeated Puerto Rican contender Jonathan Gonzalez (15-0, 13KOs) will take on former junior middleweight champion Sergei Dzinziruk (37-1, 24KOs).

"We are all excited on our side for Gennady to make his debut on U.S. TV, and especially on HBO. He knows that this is his opportunity to showcase his skills," said Tom Loeffler, Managing Director of K2 Promotions, to BoxingScene.com.

"Proksa is a very capable fighter. He avenged his only loss and he's the European champion right now, and after Pirog got injured - we have to give Proksa a lot of credit for stepping up and taking the challenge. I was surprised at how popular he was, because as soon as his name starting circulating, I started getting a lot of calls from journalists, a lot of of Polish journalists, so there is a lot of interest in the fight and watching Gennady fight."

"Proksa has a really different style than Pirog. He has a very similar style to Sergio Martinez, not on the same level, but he's got the southpaw style and keeps his hands low. Gennady can adapt to pretty much any style because of all of his amateur fights. It doesn't matter to him what type of style the opponent is."

Although Pirog withdrew with an injury, the unbeaten Russian fighter is still very much a candidate to face Golovkin in the immediate future - provided Golovkin defeats Proksa in September.

Loeffler tells BoxingScene that promoter Artie Pelullo has advised him that Pirog will be sitting ringside to watch Golovkin-Proksa.

"Definitely [Pirog is still a possibility]. I was talking to Artie Pelullo when he fell out. When Proksa came to the fight, I told Artie that Gennady made the commitment to fight Pirog and certainly we'd be interested in a fight like that down the road," Loeffler said.

"What's interested is that in those two weeks, is that the top four or five middleweight in the world will be fighting. Felix Sturm is fighting Daniel Geale, on the same day as Gennady and Proksa, and then two weeks later you have [Sergio] Martinez fighting [Julio Cesar] Chavez Jr. It's a great launching platform for potential matchups down the road."