Eddie Hearn is happy that fans are starting to write 37-year-old Gennadiy Golovkin off after his victory last Saturday night against Sergiy Derevyanchenko. Golovkin (40-1-1, 35 KOs) wasn’t his old invincible self in beating Derevyanchenko (12-2, 10 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision to win the vacant IBF middleweight title at Madison Square Garden in New York.
The fight was extremely exciting to watch, but it shouldn’t have been. The fact that GGG couldn’t dominate the 33-year-old Derevyanchenko was a clear indication that he’s not the same fighter he was years ago.
Golovkin looked beaten up just like his opponent. Hearn and Tom Loeffler spoke a lot after the fight about how beaten up looking Sergiy looked, but GGG looked pretty well beaten too.
Hearn: More people will want to fight Gennady now
“An amazing fight. One of the best fights I’ve seen,” said Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn to Boxing Social about last Saturday’s Golovkin vs. Derevyanchenko fight. “I watched the fight back, and I thought Gennadiy Golovkin won the fight. On the night, sometimes people get drawn into the underdog Cinderella story of the underdog, who has eclipsed the clear favorite, and all of a sudden, I think they get taken away on the night. The majority of the press row thought Derevyanchenko won the fight by a round or something.
Every score that everybody gave was like a round either way. I felt that Golovkin won the 11th and 12th rounds, and that won him the fight by a round. So I felt that he deserved to win the fight. I thought Derevyanchenko was brilliant. Gennadiy had his struggles during the week. He would never say it, but I said, ‘I’m going to tell f—- people, because you weren’t well.’
“There’s no shame in saying it, but you don’t want to take away the fact that Derevyanchenko was outstanding. People are saying, ‘Oh, Gennadiy is getting old.’ Maybe he is getting old or maybe he had an off night or maybe Derevyanchenko was brilliant. But I tell you something right now, there will be a lot more people that will be wanting to fight Gennadiy Golovkin.
There’s really no one right now at 160 or 168 that are trying to avoid Golovkin at this point. Saul Canelo Alvarez isn’t all that excited about fighting GGG, but that’s only because he’s tired of fighting him. Canelo wants to do something else with his career rather than locked into fighting the same guy 4 to 5 times. Who can forget the rivalry Rafael Marquez and Israel Vazquez had. Those two fighters fought each other 4 times.
By the time they finished their rivalry three years later in 2010, they were both over-the-hill. Their four grueling fights took a lot out of both of them. It’s not surprising that Canelo doesn’t want to keep fighting Golovkin, because he’s a lot younger. Canelo would miss out on a lot of good years if Golovkin wears him out in the next fight.
Golovkin being written off pleases Hearns
“So that’s a good thing. I think there’s a lot more to come from Gennadiy Golovkin, and I’ve always been a massive fan of Gennadiy Golovkin,” said Hearn about Golovkin having more left in the tank than people think. “I have to say, and I’m not brown-nosing him, but he’s one of the nicest, most credible guys you could ever meet. And I like the fact that he’s being written off now, because he needs that.
“He knows that. I saw some quotes where he said, ‘Maybe I need to do more,’ which maybe tells me that tells me that maybe he didn’t focus as much or train with the type of intensity that maybe he should have for this fight. I like that, and I like the fact that people are writing him off. I think he has a long, long way to go,” said Hearn.
It shouldn’t make Hearn happy that boxing fans are starting to see Golovkin as shot, because that tells you that they’re recognizing that he doesn’t have much left. The fans are going to be less interested in watching Golovkin fight if they think he’s over-the-hill. For that reason, Hearn SHOULDN’T be pleased that the fan are over-looking Golovkin. All the guys that Hearn wants Golovkin to fight at this point would have an excellent chance of beating him. Hearn wants to match GGG against these fighters: Callum Smith Demetrius Andrade, Billy Joe Saunders and Canelo Alvarez. Golovkin would likely lose to all of those fighters now.
Canelo has a lot of pressure on him from DAZN to fight GGG
“Maybe have a fight like that,” said Hearn when asked what Golovkin needs to do to tempt Saul Canelo Alvarez into fighting him in a trilogy match. “The truth is DAZN will be doing everything they can do to make Canelo and GGG. So there will be a lot of pressure on Canelo to make that fight.
“Now after that performance, maybe he’ll say, ‘Yeah, let’s do it anyway.’ So we’ll see. Gennady has a lot of options. There’s a mandatory to take care of, there’s Billy Joe Saunders, there’s Demetrius Andrade unification, there’s Callum Smith. [Ryota] Murata is a great fight for him in Japan. So it’s not like he has to fight Canelo. It’s that he wants to fight Canelo, because he wants to try and settle the score,” said Hearn.
I don’t think it matters whether Canelo has pressure on him from boxing fans or DAZN to fight GGG. He’s going to do what he wants with his career. If that’s to cherry pick guys from various divisions, then what he’s going to do. He’s obviously an aged guy in Sergey Kovalev on November 2. Canelo will probably win, and then move quickly away from the division before fans can start pressuring him to fight guys like Dmitry Bivol, Artur Beterbiev or Oleksandr Gvozdyk,
Andre Ward reacts to Golovkin’s narrow win over Derevyanchenko
“I like Jonathan Banks, we fought in the amateurs, but it’s too late for this,” said former two division world champion Andre Ward on his Twitter about the Golovkin-Derevyanchenko fight. “What you win the ppl with, you have to keep that going to keep them. It shouldn’t have taken last nights fight to see that there were gaping holes. Flaws were overlooked, now it’s catching up,” said Ward.
What Ward is talking about is it’s too late for Golovkin’s new trainer Johnathon Banks to be trying to change his fighting style. Banks has been talking about wanting Golovkin to defend better, throw more combinations, and use movement. He’s just not able to do that. Banks looked frustrated last Saturday in saying that Golovkin either needs to change his fighting style to become more defensive or he should retire.
Devin Haney had Derevyanchenko beating Golovkin
“Me personally, I had Sergiy [winning],” said interim WBC lightweight champion Devin Haney to DAZN in saying that he had Derevyanchenko beating Golovkin. “I thought he was the busier fighter, he landed the cleaner shots, and he finished the fight strong. I was leaning his way. I wasn’t angry about the decision, but I would like to have seen Sergiy get the win. It definitely wasn’t a one-sided fight. It was a very close fight. I was happy that I was able to watch the fight.
“If they did it again, I wouldn’t be mad with it. Yes, I feel there is a definite change in GGG. I think the Canelo fights took a lot out of him, and he’s on the downside now. If he fought Canelo now, Canelo would be just too much for him. Especially coming off of a tough fight like that, if he were to fight Canelo, I don’t know. It would be very tough,” said Haney in talking Golovkin vs. Derevyanchenko recap.
It’s pretty clear that Canelo Alvarez will beat Golovkin in a third fight. Canelo won’t get out of the fight without GGG getting his pound of flesh, but he’ll still likely win it.
Haney isn’t the only one that thought Derevyanchenko should have been given the victory. A ton of other boxing fans think the same thing. The judges gave Golovkin a little more time with his career by giving him a decision he didn’t deserve, but this can’t go on forever. GGG won’t get gift decisions or the next four fights to finish out his six-fight contract with DAZN. There will be too much criticism leveled at the judges and GGG if he receives consecutive gift decisions. At some point, the judges have it get it right, especially with the fans being so critical of the decisions.
