Golovkin- Derevyanchenko to be official Thursday

It appears the details have been all but finalized and Gennady Golovkin will battle on October 5th for a portion of the Undisputed Middleweight Championship he once held.

Golovkin will fight for the vacant IBF Middleweight Title against their number one Contender, Russian Sergey Derevyanchenko.

ESPN boxing insider/writer Dan Rafael tweeted Tuesday night that a news conference should be coming to officially announce the fight later this week:

GGG-Derevyanchenko deal is in the home stretch. Could be finalized as soon as Tuesday. Everyone involved expects a news conference sometime this week. Very brutal negotiations as they fought over every single little thing possible down to the number of hotel rooms for Derev team.

— Dan Rafael (@danrafaelespn) August 20, 2019

Rafael said in his social media post that the two sides have been haggling over everything, including the number of hotel rooms for Derevyanchenko’s team.

Golovkin has his own promotion and a three fight deal with DAZN streaming service for them to be televised. The October 5th date has been privately reserved by DAZN for Madison Square Garden for several weeks, while they have tried to secure a worthy main event.

GGG has previously headlined three times in his career at the Garden. In fact, Golovkin (39-1-1 35 KOs) fought there in June on DAZN, when he knocked out little known Canadian middleweight Steve Rolls in the fourth round.

The IBF stripped Champion Canelo Alvarez earlier this month for being unable by their deadline to come up with a deal to fight Derevyanchenko. He’s 13-1 with 10 KOs, and this will be his second attempt at the IBF belt, as he lost in his first go-around to Daniel Jacobs back last October. He had become the number one contender by winning by unanimous 12 round decision over Jack Culcay on April 13 in Minneapolis.

While Alvarez and Golden Boy Promotions were unable to make a deal with Derevyanchenko, Golovkin is more than happy to slide right back in and potentially be holding one of the 160 lbs. belts. And then, obviously, he would have a lot more leverage for a third fight with Alvarez in 2020.

The fighters fought to a controversial draw, that many observers and fans thought GGG won, in September of 2017. Alvarez, then won a 12 round disputed decision in the rematch last September handing Golovkin his first pro loss.

UPDATE: The fight now appears to be a done deal with this tweet Tuesday night from Dan Rafael of ESPN.

Per Rafael, The paperwork is in the hands of each camp. Assuming that paperwork reflects what was agreed to in the deal, it will be signed and a news conference will be scheduled for Thursday at Madison Square Garden in New York, and will be seen exclusively on the streaming service, DAZN.