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?Crunch Time? for Triple G By Ralph Rimpell PhilBoxing.com Sat, 14 Apr 2018  For those of you readers not familiar with the term ?crunch time?, it?s an expression often heard in arenas when two competitive teams are battling to get the victory over the opposing team. It?s usually in the final quarter with little time left in regulation, the score is close, and either team could end up with the victory. It could also be two opposing fighters heading into the final 2 rounds of a very close and exciting fight whereby the winner of the fight will be determined based on the final round or two. A case in point is last Saturday?s 154 lbs. unification of Erislandy Lara versus Jarret Hurd on the Showtime network. Most observers had the fight very close going into the final and 12th round. Hurd scored a knockdown securing victory to add Lara?s WBA title to his own IBF title. Gennady (Triple G) Golovkin (38-0-1, 33KOs) is the unified middleweight champion of the world. He is now 36 years old and has been middleweight champion since 2010. Among all time middleweights he has the second most defenses (19). That is 7 more defenses than Marvelous Marvin Hagler and 5 more defenses than Carlos Monzon! He is on the threshold of equaling all the all-time leader, Bernard Hopkins who has 20 defenses. Golovkin?s last 2 fights were against top tier opponents. He outpointed former champion Daniel Jacobs by a close decision victory and appeared to have convincingly beat former junior middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez, but was awarded an unpopular draw. He currently has no opponent for May 5, 2018 after Canelo Alvarez withdrew from a scheduled rematch and suspended for failed drug tests. As of the writing of this article, no replacement opponent has been found for Golovkin. At age 36, this is ?crunch time? for Golovkin?. He finally has the boxing world?s attention after dominating the division with quality opponents. There is talk that a rematch with Canelo could take place in September 2018. Should he officially defeat Canelo there is no shortage of opponents. Former Junior middleweight champion Jermall Charlo has recently moved up to 160lbs and wants a title shot badly. Daniel Jacobs believes he defeated Golovkin and was not awarded the victory. Least but not last is WBO Champion Billy Joe Saunders who has proven he belongs in this mix of fighters to face Golovkin after he totally outclassed former champion IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux. Any of these fighters are capable of defeating Golovkin or giving him a close fight. This writer definitely sees the next 2-3 fights as ?Crunch time? for Golovkin to either silence his Critics and prove why certain fighters avoided him because he is one of the best middleweight champions in boxing history or he is not as good as many believed. Contact Writer: RLuvsboxing@aol.com ***Ralph Rimpell is a writer based out of New York and is a Boxing Correspondent for Philboxing.com. Ralph holds an undergraduate degree from City University of New York. He has been a Boxing Writer for over ten years having written for several top boxing websites on the World Wide Web. Before becoming a writer, Ralph's passion was for professional wrestling until he realized professional wrestling was entertainment and not a real sport. It was at that time the 1984 US Olympic team made up of future stars such as Evander Holyfield, Meldrick Taylor, Pernell Whitaker, etc. entered the professional ranks and signed with promotional outfit Main Events.It was also at that time a young exciting Heavyweight originally hailing from Brooklyn named Mike Tyson also turned professional and became the face of boxing. Young boxing fan Ralph just couldn't get enough of boxing as a large part of it was being broadcast on "free TV". As time went on, Ralph felt boxing writers were not being forthcoming with their boxing coverage, opinion pieces, interviews, etc. So Ralph decided to write an article and submitted it to a Boxing website thinking it would be deleted and ignored by the Editor. To Ralph's surprise his article was posted on their website and the readers embraced it. The rest is history. "I thank God for the Internet because it has created opportunities for writers like myself who likely would not have been given an opportunity to write for print publications. I hope someday soon to expand my role in Boxing on different levels." -- Ralph Rimpell Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ralph Rimpell.  |
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