IBF middleweight champion Gennadiy ‘GGG’ Golovkin will be returning to the ring next month to face his mandatory Kamil Szeremeta (21-0, 5 KOs) on DAZN. Golovkin-Szeremeta will be Golovkin’s third fight of his lucrative six-fight contract with the streaming giant DAZN.
The news of Canelo Alvarez leaving DAZN last Friday makes it important for fighters like Golovkin to start fighting opposition that U.S boxing fans actually want to see him fight.
GGG needs to step it up already
Golovkin has already whiffed on one of his three-fights with DAZN in facing Steve Rolls. GGG would be good to start bringing value to DAZN by concentrating on facing quality contenders or champions.
If you’re one of the top brass at DAZN, will you consider re-signing Golovkin if his six fights that you streamed failed to bring in many subscribers? Probably not, which is why Golovkin shouldn’t be wasting his time facing fighters like Szeremeta and Steve Rolls.
You can’t have a tin ear for the type of fights that the U.S boxing fans want to see. Of course, if Golovkin plans on retiring after his six-fight contract is up with DAZN, then, by all means, go ahead and keep fighting guys like Rolls and Szeremeta until the bitter end.
But if Golovkin has hopes of being re-signed by DAZN with a new contract, he’s going about it all the wrong way. That’s the way I see it. If I were with DAZN, I wouldn’t resign Golovkin based on the type of fighters he’s been facing thus far because I would figure that we’d see the same type of opposition for him if he re-inked.
Golovkin will start fighting marquee opposition in 2021
According to Mike Coppinger, if Golovkin beats Szeremeta, he’s supposed to start fighting the elite-level fighters in 2021 on DAZN. The elite-level guys that we could see Golovkin fight in 2021 are from this list:
- Demetrius Andrade
- Billy Joe Saunders
- Callum Smith
Of those three, Andrade is elite, whereas Callum and Saunders are lower B-level fighters at best. If you saw their last fights a year ago against John Ryder and Marco Coceres, you’d know what I’m talking about. Calum and Saunders are not marquee fighters. They’re belt-holders and nowhere near the level of marquee talents.
Golovkin’s two previous matches on his contract with DAZN were beaten little known Canadian super middleweight Steve Rolls and Sergiy Derevyanchenko.
The Derevyanchenko contest was an excellent one for boxing fans, but you can’t say the same about Golovkin’s mismatch against 36-year-old Rolls in June of 2019. That was a poor fight from the jump, as Golovkin destroyed the obscure Canadian Steve Rolls in four rounds.
If the fight with Szeremeta, 31, goes through, DAZN will have gotten another less than spectacular fight from Golovkin. I’m not sure that this is what DAZN bargained for when they signed the Kazakhstan fighter Golovkin to a six-fight contract.
DAZN may have been thinking that they’d see Golovkin take on these type of fighters:
- Canelo Alvarez
- Jermall Charlo
- Demetrius Andrade
- Chris Eubank Jr
- Jaime Munguia
- David Benavidez
- Caleb Plant
- Callum Smith
- Edgar Berlanga
- Daniel Jacobs
It’s too bad Golovkin hasn’t chosen to take one for the team and deposit his IBF middleweight title in the nearest trash bin. If he wanted to help DAZN right now, giving up the IBF title would do the job, as it would free him from needing to defend the title against Szeremeta.
That’s not a fight that will bring in the subscribers for DAZN. If Golovkin got rid of the IBF title, he could concentrate on fighting good middleweights like Jermall Charlo, Sergiy Derevyanchenko, Chris Eubank Jr, or Jaime Munguia.
How about a rematch with Derevyanchenko?
Due to the controversy surrounding Golovkins’s questionable win over Derevyanchenko last year in October 2019, GGG arguably owes the Ukrainian fighter a rematch, and he needs to show the boxing public ghat he wasn’t gifted his 12 round decision win.
“Sources: Gennadiy Golovkin’s title defense against Kamil Szeremeta is being targeted for Dec. 18 or Dec. 19 in the U.S. on DAZN.
Once the streaming service finally sorts this out for GGG, he can look to marquee fights in the spring of 2021,” said @MikeCoppinger.