Though undefeated star Gennady Golovkin insists he is in no way looking past his “biggest test” of a fight with Kell Brook, it is understandable how his team are looking at what may come next for the middleweight ruler. Tom Loeffler, GGG’s manager, has said how the plan, all being well, is for Golovkin to box again in November or December of this year. That would be just two or three months on from the defence against IBF welterweight champ Brook, but who might the opponent be?
According to Golovkin’s trainer, it will either be Chris Eubank Junior or 168-pound titlist James De Gale – at least this is what Abel Sanchez told Sky Sports recently. Sanchez said the fight with Eubank Jr is “naturally next,” but that Chris Eubank Senior must be more reasonable in the pre-fight negotiations. If the Eubanks are as awkward and as seemingly impossible to deal with as they were when the first attempts to sign a GGG-Eubank fight took place, Sanchez says they will look at going up in weight to face DeGale for his super-middleweight belt.
I don’t know about you, but as intriguing as that Eubank challenge of GGG still is, I would rather see Golovkin move up in weight and face the classy, underrated southpaw DeGale. That way, the critics who have moaned and are moaning about how GGG has “picked on a smaller guy” in Brook would have no ammo to aim at Golovkin. That aside, a Golovkin-DeGale fight would be a most interesting clash of styles between two peaking world champions. I’m pretty sure DeGale would jump at the fight and not prove as awkward a negotiator as the Eubanks did (and more than likely would do again).
Could Golovkin beat a major force up at 168-pounds? If he did, would he then drop back down in weight to 160? If GGG did fight DeGale, would the fight take place in the UK? Kell Brook must be taken care of first – and he will want to hear nothing about Golovkin’s future plans, so sure is he he can shock the world, and the middleweight king, next month – but it could well be that GGG winds up facing another British fighter, a world champion, in his very next fight after the expected big night at The O2 in London.