With Gennady Golovkin poised for potential stardom and with the possibility that he could replace the retired Floyd Mayweather as boxing?s next pay-per-view star, he?ll have the chance Saturday night at a sold-out Madison Square Garden to record his most-important win to date against dangerous David Lemieux.
And Golovkin is ready to take the next step.
?This being the kind of show that it has turned out to be as far as ticket sales and the promotion, it might be best to go out there and be a Hagler-Hearns fight because that?s what the fans are expecting,? Golovkin?s trainer, Abel Sanchez, said in August. ?And that?s what [Golovkin] wants to provide. What is he always saying? He wants a drama show.?
David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs), second from right, and Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) from Kazakhstan, center, will meet in a championship unification fight on Saturday. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
A drama show is likely what we?ll get as Golovkin (33-0, 30 knockouts) and Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs) prepare for the most anticipated fight of either man?s career.
Here are three reasons why Golovkin and Lemieux could engage in the most exciting fight of 2015 and help the sport begin to leave the Mayweather era behind.
1) Both have enormously high knockout percentages: Which means there?s a good chance somebody is going to get flattened ? sooner rather than later. Golovkin has never been in danger of falling from a punch, but Lemiuex, with a knockout percentage of 86.1, will test his chin more rigorously than any other opponent in Golovkin?s career. Lemieux, after all, can do this.
But Golovkin is no slouch in the punching power department. His knockout percentage of 90.9 percent is higher than Mike Tyson?s was after 33 fights, and with Golovkin, viewers are virtually guaranteed an all-action fight.
