Gennady "GGG" Golovkin, boxing's rising superstar, is becoming more aggressive in his hunt for a star-making fight. Despite a perfect record, and 20 straight knockout victories, Golovkin hasn't broken through the glass ceiling to stardom yet because many big names avoid fighting him.
Golovkin has set his sights on WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto, and he's the mandatory challenger. Golovkin badly wants to unify the 160-pound weight class, but Cotto, a admittedly small middleweight, would prefer to fight Canelo Alvarez in his next fight.
The WBC has said they'll allow Cotto-Canelo to move forward as long as they both guarantee the winner will face Golovkin next. Cotto remains reluctant, and now Golovkin's handlers are saying they will refuse to step aside unless they're guaranteed a title shot. This could result in either a guarantee, or Cotto dropping the belt altogether and forgetting about Golovkin.
"Certainly Cotto can fight Canelo if he wants to, but it won't be for the WBC title unless they have an agreement from us," Golovkin's promoter Tom Loeffler said. "The whole point of the interim championship is that when the regular champion is healthy he's obligated to fight him and the voluntary defense he had this time [vs. Daniel Geale]-that was supposed to be the Canelo fight.
"That was the resolution at the WBC convention. They were supposed to fight May 2 and then we wouldn't have this issue trying to work out the Canelo-Cotto fight."
After Cotto knocked out Geale on Saturday in his first WBC title defense, he said his goal was to take on Alvarez next. When asked about Golovkin, Cotto stammered andhesitated. Eventually, he said "Why not?" regarding a Golovkin fight, but if he ever does fight GGG it won't be until 2016. Last weekend's fight vs. Geale was Cotto's first in almost a full calendar year.
In the meantime, Golovkin is expected to stay active. He has fought twice in 2015 already, and he may be gearing up for a fire fight vs. fellow knockout artist David Lemieux.
"I am interested in all of the top fighters," Lemieux said. "I want to fight the best. GGG is in that mix for sure so I would love to fight him."
Lemieux is scheduled to face Hassan N'Dam first, though, on June 20 for the vacant IBF middleweight title.
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