“Remember guys I have three belts at 160, I will come back, I’m still champion.” The words of Gennadiy Golovkin when interviewed by DAZN moments after the end of his trilogy with Canelo Alvarez.
Those words date back to September last year, the belts have gone and many boxing fans worry that Golovkin may be gone too. Arguably this generation's greatest middleweight, Golovkin news has been slow. Erislandy Lara, Chris Eubank Jr and now John Ryder have all been touted for the 41 year old. But no movements have been seen yet.
Golovkin’s manager Tom Loeffler spoke exclusively to ProBox TV News to give an update on his next fight.
Having gone past the 40 year landmark, it wouldn’t come as too much of a surprise if Golovkin did hang up his gloves. However, trainer Johnathon Banks believes the former unified middleweight champion has ‘a couple more left in him.’
“None of us have heard anything that he doesn’t want to keep fighting.” Loeffler continued. “Just because he has relinquished his titles doesn’t mean he will retire. He is just looking for the bigger names. After the three Canelo fights and the big fights he’s had in boxing, he’s looking for the bigger names to motivate him.”
The Canelo trilogy was contentious to say the very least. The scorecards from fights one and two were not at all given any praise from the media and pundits. Fight three Canelo was considered the worthy winner, but surely a bitter taste lays in the mouth of Golovkin,
“It’s funny that all the Europeans say he won [the first two fights] and I agree with that.” Loeffler explained. “It was unfortunate, we probably had one of the worst scorecards in boxing history in the first fight, and the second fight was also bad. I thought he won or at the very worst got a draw. I think that one hurt him the most as they took his titles away in that second fight. It has left a bad taste in his mouth, but he has had such an illustrious career with so many great wins.
“I think he has a couple more fights left in him too. Last year he went to Japan and sold-out the Saitama Arena and knocked out the world champion in Ryota Murata. That is no easy feat! The great thing about GGG is that he has fought all over the world, he sold out the O2 Arena when he came over to fight Kell Brook. He was like a rockstar when he went over to Japan, people obviously knew who he was. He had the same in Monaco when he fought there and also when he went down to Mexico City, they loved him. He’s a global superstar. I’m just looking forward to seeing what he decides to do, like I said we will support him 100 percent. He can still make 160 pounds. It is very interesting because when he was coming up and I was working with HBO building him up, nobody wanted to fight him! Now at least it seems like people want to get in the ring with him.”