Golovkin moves quickly to mandatory opponent next

Newly-crowned IBF Middleweight Champion, Gennady Golovkin, still hopes to get a third fight with Canelo Alvarez in 2020. However, he also realizes that Alvarez doesn’t really want to fight him in the short term. So he’s wasting no time moving on to his next opponent.

ESPN boxing senior writer, Dan Rafael, reported late Thursday evening that “Triple G” will be back in the ring in late February or early March against the IBF’s new number one ranked Contender Kamil Szeremeta:

Gennadiy Golovkin, who won a vacant middleweight world title on Oct. 5 in New York, and mandatory challenger Kamil Szeremeta, who won on the undercard, have agreed to terms to meet in late February or March, a source with knowledge of the deal told ESPN… https://t.co/owg2CGwQAM

— Dan Rafael (@danrafaelespn) November 1, 2019

As Rafael tweeted, there is a huge polish population in Chicago, Szeremeta’s home country and the fight seems that it would be a natural for that location. Of course, the same can be said for a large Polish-New York population, and Golovkin has headlined at Madison Square Garden numerous times, previously

This includes his somewhat controversial close 12-round decision win in early October over Russian Sergey Derevyanchenko. Triple G and Derevyanchenko fought for the vacant IBF belt that was taken from Alvarez, when he refused to make a mandatory defense this fall.

Also, Szeremeta defeated Oscar Cortez by TKO on the GGG-Derevyanchenko undercard to improve to 21-0. However, that was only the fifth stoppage or knockout for the light punching Polish contender in his professional career.

Golovkin is wasting no time, as he is 37 years of age and realizes he probably only has 2 – 3 years of quality fighting left. There is also talk that he might fight WBO Middleweight Champ, Demetrius “Boo Boo” Andrade, later in 2020 to try to pick up a second middleweight world title and gain more leverage.

Both fighters are promoted by Eddie Hearn and Matchroom Boxing, and that fight would seemingly be easy to make if Golovkin wants it. Andrade has been frustrated at not being able to get Canelo or another huge named fighter to take him on in the past year.

Triple G will also sit back with everyone else and see what happens Saturday night, as Alvarez takes on WBO Light Heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev in an attempt to win a fourth world title in a fourth different weight class.

Particularly, if Canelo loses the Kovalev fight, it might be better for the chances that he and Triple G battle again, for the middleweight belts.