Showing once again his star power, middleweight sensation Gennady Golovkin, with his easy, quick and decisive win over an over-matched but game Dominic Wade, drew in well over a million fight fans on HBO this past Saturday; 1.388 (at peak) to be exact. This is the news from ESPN.com and naturally, all at Team-GGG are thrilled. Golovkin, even when matched with a whopping great underdog everyone knows has next to no chance of derailing the Kazakhstan terror, attracts the fans.
Just imagine how many pay-per-view buys a GGG-Canelo Alvarez super-fight would get if it actually happened! But the way things are, with the Mexican star, or at least his promotional outfit, continuing to play hardball over accepting the fight at full middleweight, Golovkin might have to be content with pulling in around a million fans as he faces challengers who are not in his class. Will the fans begin to drift away if Golovkin is unable to get the big, big fights he wants? Or will fight fans who love to see brutal knockouts keep coming and coming no matter who GGG fights?
Not only is Golovkin picking up big TV numbers (the Wade fight is the most watched boxing match to have gone out on HBO so far this year) he is also selling out arenas. Again, just imagine Golovkin’s star power if he were going up against big names thought to have at least a decent shot at beating him! Golovkin has clearly arrived, and he is here to stay. But again, it is a serious question: just who can he fight next, or in his next couple of fights, if it’s not Canelo Alvarez?
Some have suggested WBO middleweight champ Billy Joe Saunders; a good enough option, but does Saunders really want the fight? Maybe a move up in weight could be a possibility. Or maybe, just maybe, a genuine super-fight with megastar Manny Pacquiao could happen! Pac-Man is “retired,” as we know, but that hasn’t stopped talk of this potential blockbuster being made. If that one does come off, the TV numbers generated would make 1.388 million look positively small.