We are not a week removed from another Gennedy Golovkin fight in which he easily disposed of Marco Antonio Rubio by 2nd round KO. Now the biggest question regarding boxing’s fastest rising star is: Who will he face next? I plan to go over 5 big names in the sport that have been mentioned with Golovkin and the reasons of why should they happen, why won’t they happen, and explain some of the reasons why they can’t happen. So let’s get right into the list of prospective opponents:
Miguel Cotto
Cotto is the one that Golovkin’s camp really wants. Every time Golovkin or his team led by promoter Tom Loeffler, is asked who they would prefer next, Cotto is the name that gets said first. Cotto is the current WBC Middleweight Champion. With Golovkin’s win over Rubio, Golovkin won the interim WBC middleweight title, which makes him the mandatory to Cotto’s belt. The reason we may never see this is purely because Cotto is small for even a junior middleweight, much less a legitimate Middleweight. He was smart enough to take advantage of a Sergio Martinez that was clearly not 100%, and he made Puerto Rican history. I think in his mind he has done all he wanted to do at the 160 pound division.
Canelo Alvarez
The name that comes up right after Miguel Cotto is Canelo Alvarez. Now don’t get me wrong, I do think eventually this could be the fight we see, but I don’t see it anytime soon. Everyone in the sport expects Alvarez to face Cotto the first week of May at a weight somewhere between 154 and 156. This is currently the biggest money making fight in the sport because the myth known as Mayweather vs. Pacquiao seems to be unlikely. There is nothing that I can see stopping this from happening. Golovkin’s team says that he has to get the winner of this fight, but that fight, at the earliest, will not be until the end of 2015, so Golovkin will probably be fighting 2-3 times before that fight will be imaginable.
Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.
I think this would actually be a great fight if it happened. Chavez is a hard puncher and is known for having a good chin and Golovkin has gotten hit a couple times in his last couple fights. However, Chavez Jr is in a battle with his promoter, Bob Arum and Top Rank. He hasn’t fought since March and has only 2 fights since he lost to Sergio Martinez in September of 2012. He has recently hinted that he may get back in the ring to fight Carl Froch, but until the dotted line is signed, it’s hard to believe anything that is being said right now regarding him.
Carl Froch
If Froch does fight Chavez Jr., then this is obviously out of question for now, but he is who I would target if I were Golovkin’s team. GGG has already made a huge name for himself in the US, but imagine a fight against Froch, in the UK, in front of 80,000 people in Wembley Stadium. We all know how tough Froch is and he is even tougher when fighting in from of his raucous home crowd. A win by stoppage over there would propel Golovkin into an international superstar. It would then make Golovkin a PPV draw and then he would be able to call the shots.
Andre Ward
Now I don’t think there is any way that this fight happens, but it has nothing to with people being scared or people ducking, it’s purely financial. However, since Ward is the best at 168 and has been mentioned by numerous people on social media, I included him in this group. Biggest problem here is a fight between Golovkin and the 4 names I mentioned above are PPV fights, Golovkin vs. Ward, isn’t. Ward would probably demand 3+ million for a fight against GGG, while Golovkin would want near or around 2 million. A fight where both boxers are combining for 5 million, or more, doesn’t work on normal HBO TV. Unless both boxers sacrificed money to make it happen, I can’t see it happening and I don’t see either boxer backing down from their price tag, and why would they? This is prizefighting.
The biggest issue Golovkin has had in the past is getting a big money fight against another big money fighter, while having the fight worth the risk for the opponent financially. In his last 2 fights, he has sold over 8,000 tickets on the east coast and now over 9,000 tickets on the west coast. He is turning into a star within the sport and his name is now starting to leak out to casual fans. If he keeps this pace up, people will be asking to fight him, instead of the other way around.
So if none of the guys listed above will fight Golovkin, who does he fight? Martin Murray has recently said he wants a shot at him, but he has to get past Domenico Spada first. Sadly, this maybe the best we can hope for as a Golovkin opponent until late in 2015 or early 2016. That is when he may finally get his chance at the big boys. So what can we say is a definite guarantee of who Golovkin will face? Only god knows, and I’m not talking about Al Hayman, enjoy the fights.
