Golovkin edges Derevyanchenko at Madison Square Garden
The Mecca of Boxing, Madison Square Garden was the site Saturday night for Gennadiy “GGG” Golovkin to escape and defeat Sergiy Derevyanchenko to win the vacant IBF and IBO middleweight titles.
A pro-Golovkin crowd was on hand for the main event that aired on the streaming service DAZN to see Golovkin win by majority decision 114-113 and by the other two judges 115-112 in a fight that could’ve gone either way both for Derevyanchenko or the new champ.
The first few rounds for Derevyanchenko couldn’t have started any worse. Derevyanchenko was hit with a flash knockdown in the first round and in the second round got popped with a left, which caused a very nasty cut over the right eye of Derevyanchenko
Sergiy's Cut ?#GGGDerevyanchenko pic.twitter.com/otnLl91yOD
— DAZN USA (@DAZN_USA) October 6, 2019
The commission after the fourth round of the fight ruled the cut above his eye came from an accidental headbutt instead of a punch, but the cut wouldn’t be much of a factor, as the fight went the distance anyway.
Derevyanchenko sensing the urgency and the possibility of the fight being stopped because of the cut began to turn it on. And, that is when this bout became a whole different fight. Derevyanchenko made it a fight gameplan to attack the body of Golovkin whenever he threw a jab, and you can see in the middle and later rounds, Golovkin covered up a lot quicker to limit the punishment of body shots he was taking.
Final Punch Stats for #GGGDerevyanchenko: pic.twitter.com/mZgaMuWHhu
— CompuBox (@CompuBox) October 6, 2019
From there, this bout became an all-out war. The factor that made this fight closer than expected was the younger Derevyanchenko was throwing more, but this version of Golovkin was more focused and systematic. Though this fight had all the signs of getting away from Golovkin, in the end the final Compubox numbers total that Golovkin landed more punches 243-230.
A lot of folks expected this to be a close one, as we previewed on the podcast this week and this one definitely was.
Golovkin, now 40-1-1, regained a portion of the World Middleweight Title he lost to Canelo Alvarez in September of 2018.
Marquis Johns is a unknown humorist and avid boxing fan. His love for the sweet science goes back to when matches were 15 rounds and has been covering fights since closed-circuit pay-per-views. Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth is not only a quote by Mike Tyson, it's also a pretty good reminder to keep your guard up.
