(Photo credit: Naoki Fakuda) Some boxing fans feel that Marco Antonio Rubio (59-6-1, 51 KOs) has the chin and the toughness to take WBA Super World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (30-0, 27 KOs) the distance tonight in their bout at the StubHub Center in Carson, California. Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez doesn’t think Rubio is going to make it past the 5th. Sanchez believes that Rubio will be on the run by the 3rd round just looking to survive in the same manner that Golovkin’s last opponent Daniel Geale was out to survive last July in his fight against Golovkin.
Geale only lasted 3 rounds before Golovkin knocked him out. The thing with Rubio is he’s never been a runner before, and it’s difficult to picture him taking off and running the way Geale did or how some of Golovkin’s other opponents have done. Rubio seems to be more of the type of fighter who goes out on his shield while trying to go toe-to-toe with his opponent.
That’s the way Rubio has fought his entire career, and it’s difficult to imagine him changing his fighting style for a big fight like this. Rubio is going to have a lot of boxing fans rooting for him in this fight, and it’s doubtful that he’ll be playing it safe especially when his only chance of winning the fight is if he slugs with Golovkin.
“I expect Rubio to come out and make his people proud at the beginning,” Sanchez said to Steve Kim. “But once Gennady figures out his speed, distance and figures out his timing, it’s a matter of chasing him down after the 2nd round and putting him away. In the 3rd round, I think Rubio will start to run from him. In the 4th round, he [Golovkin] puts him down, and in the 5th round he puts him out.”
Rubio has the power to make this fight an interesting one if he comes out quickly and puts everything he has in his punches. He can’t fight Golovkin cautiously because that style has never proven to work in the past for Golovkin’s opponents.