Fresh off his first round knockout win over Saul Roman in early August on NBC sports, Curtis “Showtime” Stevens (25-3 18KOs) is on his way back into the ring when he takes on WBA Middleweight titlist Gennady Golovkin (27-0 24KOs). The fight will take place on November 2nd at the Madison Square Garden Theater in Stevens’ backyard of New York City. In the weeks leading up to the announcement of the fight, fans were outraged to hear that Stevens turned down the original offer of $300,000 to fight Golovkin, which would have been Stevens’ highest pay day to date. As all good negotiating goes, Golovkin’s team came back with a counter offer and it paid off for Stevens to hold out. “I’m like a criminal on trial, you don’t take the first offer,” said Stevens.
Since Golovkin first burst onto the scene, Stevens’ has been clamoring for the chance to take him on. After many interviews, including one with ThaBoxingVoice he finally got his wish “I was asking for it and I got it, now it’s time for me to put in my work.”
Every weight division has top fighters but it’s not that often those fighters are feared and outright ducked. Promoters and fighters have been avoiding Golovkin like the plague, and have refused to fight or put their fighters in with him. Stevens is not one of these fighters. He understands the importance of this fight and to get past Golovkin would catapult him to the top of the middleweight division “if no one wants to fight him, why not fight him,” he continued “If you want to be the best, you have to fight the best.”
Some fans have criticized Golovkin’s opposition stating that they were either too small or just not at the level skills wise in which a champion should be fighting. Stevens believes that Golovkin’s criticism is valid, he stated, “They call him the most feared Middleweight in the world, I don’t believe that the most feared Middleweight in the world would fight Junior Middleweights.”
If you take look on Stevens’ twitter page (@Showtime_curtis) you’ll see a plethora of images aimed at Golovkin. Most notable one of the images depict a casket with the initials “RIP GGG” on it, but Stevens doesn’t see anything wrong with stirring up some controversy. “I’m having fun, I’m promoting.” Golovkin has not yet fired back with a rebuttal to the images but Stevens knows that just isn’t, “The Good Boy’s” style, he stated, “He’s a quiet guy but he’s a killer.”
Golovkin has proved to be “a killer”, as he has not had a fight go to the judges’ score cards in over 5 years. Stevens may have gone the distance quite a few times but you can’t underestimate the one punch knockout power he as well possesses. It’s because of Golovkin’s punching power that many have avoided him but Stevens is eager to see if the hype surrounding the Champion is justified. “We’re going to see when November 2nd comes if he stands up to his name.”
