After victory over Nunez, Golovkin eyes bigger fish
One of August's shortest, best performances was middleweight contender Gennady Golovkin’s searing first round TKO of Milton Nunez. The fight was for the interim WBA title. Golovkin simply pursued his opponent with a flurry of punches, until his opponent seemed completely overwhelmed and fell to the canvas. The referee waved the bout off shortly after.
Golovkin makes for an interesting story. He is widely considered the best up-and-coming middleweight prospect in the world. That’s not just fancy talk—this is a guy that, despite not having quite proved himself in the professional rankings, boasts a 19-0 record following the Nunez win, with 16 KOs. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Nunez was a relative nobody. Golovkin had already proven himself in the past, winning the silver medal at the 2004 Olympics. What’s more is that he beat current middleweight contender Andre Dirrell to do it. Not to mention that a year before, in 2003, Golovkin did the seemingly-impossible: he knocked out current super-middleweight champion Lucian Bute at the World Amateur Boxing Championships.
All of these assets have made Golovkin something of a myth and a legend in professional boxing. For the better part of his career he fought out of Universum, the German-based promotion company, whom once held the interests of the Klitschko brothers as well as current WBA middleweight champion Felix Sturm. But aside from boxing insiders, Golovkin was relatively unknown, and wasn’t able to get the press or the attention he should of. Finally, due to a string of disputes with Universum, he parted ways from the company in January.
Golovkin claimed that Universum had no plans for him, and that they did not win him the prospective bouts he was entitled to. Last week he said that his decision to leave was “definitive and irrevocable.” He added: “The reason for this decision is that I've always been placed behind Felix Sturm and Sebastian Zbik by Universum. Our demands to fight against Felix Sturm or Sabastian Zbik have been always rejected on absurd grounds. Universum had no real plan or concept for me, they did not even try to bring my career forward.”
He speculated that, as long as Universum could maintain other titlists, it was in their interest to stop him from advancing or winning titles. He said: “They [Universum] would rather try to prevent me from winning a title as long as Sturm and Zbik are champions [...] Furthermore, bouts against well-known and interesting opponents (e.g. Marco Antonio Rubio or Anthony Mundine) were held out in prospect, but nothing happened. This situation was not acceptable. It was time to move forward.”
When asked if he has offers from major American promoters, Golovkin said that he did, but that he has to conclude legal issues with Universum. It is also suspected that the Kazakh superstar will permanently relocate to the United States in order to pursue professional business opportunities.
Many are speculating as to why Golovkin would face a relative nobody, Nunez, in light of his status as a serious middleweight contender. Although he is now free of Universum, some have wondered why he chose to fight Nunez out of all of the competition in the division. In this sense it seems like a Universum-sponsored fight. Golovkin responded that his team “asked every boxer ranked under the first 10 in the WBA ranking” to fight, and Nunez was the only one willing.
With the interim belt, Golovkin is a contender for the WBA belt itself. A prospective match with Sturm or others in the division would turn heads and hopefully give him the publicly he obviously warrants. The ability to fight Sturm as well might just give him some vengeance against his former promotion company.
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