With each successive knockout, Gennady Golovkin finds himself in an increasingly unfortunate situation. Gennady needs to get in the ring with a name like Cotto or Canelo to help elevate him to the next level. Unfortunately, Golovkin’s star isn’t bright enough to allow him to offer “name” opponents the kind of incentive (i.e., money) it will take for them to get in the ring with him. It’s a classic “catch 22” situation that Gennady’s team is going to have to figure out in the upcoming months.
ThaBoxingVoice caught up with Abel Sanchez to discuss Gennady Golovkin’s future and what his chances are of getting Cotto or Canelo into the ring by the end of the year. Sanchez doesn’t sound very confident for 2015.
“First of all, I don’t think Cotto would ever fight us. Canelo may fight us in 2016, at the end of the year maybe or sometime in the middle of the year.”
He then went on to suggest that Oscar De La Hoya would continue to “milk” Canelo and protect his star before he would put him in the ring with a guy like Golovkin. Passive aggressive comments aside, Sanchez, didn’t disagree with the tactic.
“I think Oscar’s gonna use Canelo like Bob used uhh, Manny… to build him up a little bit first before he puts him in a tough fight. Canelo’s a young man; he’s only 22, 23 years old so there’s no reason to put him in against a guy like Golovkin. But I think Oscar should… and is going to, milk it as long as he can.”
On the off chance that Cotto or Canelo would be willing to get into the ring with GGG, Sanchez insists that neither fighter would be able to last more than 8 rounds. When asked, he elaborated on why he remains so confident in that prediction.
Sanchez explained, “… Gennady is on a different level and uhh, I think that both of those guys understand that, and both of those guys’ management teams understand that. That’s why they don’t want to come forward and face him… if they wanted to face Golovkin, they would have made offers or called promoters…”
Gennady Golovkin’s success seems to be his biggest obstacle this year. As long as he keeps disposing of his opponents in brutal fashion, people will continue to question the level of his competition. For now, the guys that actually do accept Golovkin’s legitimacy, happen to be the superstars he is desperate to face. Until those stars begin to underestimate him as much as his detractors, we may have to settle for more of the same from Golovkin in 2015.
