Gennady Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler says he expects the Kazakh middleweight to return in the summer, but that he is leaving it to the likely future Hall-of-Famer to decide on what is next in his career.
"He’s spending family time right now,” Loeffler told ProBoxTV News in an interview. “His son's a great hockey player and he's very involved as a hockey dad, so my feeling is he’ll probably fight in summertime. But you know, we're just waiting for him to make his decision; he steers his own ship, and we've always designed it that way.”
Golovkin, 42-2-1 (37 KOs), has not fought since losing the third of his three-bout series with Canelo Alvarez last September. Because that bout was for Canelo’s super-middleweight crown, Golovkin retained his middleweight belts despite the defeat; however, he has since surrendered them both, rather than be forced to face his IBF and WBA mandatory challengers, Esquiva Falcao and Erislandy Lara respectively. Following those decisions, the WBC installed Golovkin as its number one challenger for their title holder, Jermall Charlo, which may hold more appeal for GGG than the other two options.
“He hasn’t decided what direction he wants to go in,” said Loeffler, noting that Golovkin will turn 41 next month. “My indication is he’s looking for the right direction or the right fight. It’s hard to say, when you’re at that level and you’ve accomplished as much as he has, how much longer he’s going to fight. He doesn’t need to fight financially, and my feeling is he isn’t going to be one of those guys who fights longer than he should. After what he’s accomplished, he can pretty much decide himself what direction he wants to go in. My guess is maybe one or two more fights, but we’ll see what he’s going to do.”