It is hard to not fall in love in with Gennady Golovkin.
He has that little kid smile, the charm and charisma that gravitates people to him and makes you want to give him a hug. Add in the fact he decimates his opponents, knocking them to the canvas at will, smiles and then tells the fans, “Welcome to the Big Drama Show”, you have most dangerous fighter in boxing.
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The show returns on Saturday night when Golovkin defends his WBA and interim WBC middleweight championships against IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux in a title unification bout on HBO pay-per-view (9 p.m. ET).
This is the first time Golovkin will be headlining a PPV event and a lot of pressure is on the shoulders of the Kazakhstan native. Boxing fans want him desperately to be the manto replace Floyd Mayweather as the face of boxing.
In every sense of the word, Golovkin is the anti-Mayweather.
When you listen to Golovkin speak, you believe every word that comes out of his mouth, the exact opposite of Mayweather. He routinely calls out the best names in the sport including Mayweather, Miguel Cotto and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. All of them have turned him down, stating he isn’t a big enough name to generate maximum dollars. But like Mayweather, it is all talk. Golovkin is the most dangerous boxer on the planet.
“GGG” started fighting full-time in the United States in 2012 and made his permanent residence in Los Angeles last year.
The rise of Golovkin is one we have rarely seen. He went from fighting on the undercard of an event at The Theater of Madison Square Garden in 2013 to virtually selling out “The World’s Most Famous Arena” (about 10 tickets remain according to sources close to the situation) less than two years later..
For this event to generate a profit it only needs to sell about 200,000 buys. It shouldn’t be hard considering Golovkin has been all over every sports platform for the last year and recently appeared in the new Apple Watch commercial which shows his mass appeal, something Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao were unable to achieve at the stage Golovkin is currently at.
Last October, Golovkin sold out the 12,000-seat StubHub Center in Carson, Cal for his second round destruction of Marco Antonio Rubio. There was such an unbelievable amount of interest in the fight where temporary seats were added to the venue. In May in front an almost sold-out Forum near Los Angeles, Golovkin smashed Willie Monroe Jr. by sixth-round knockout.
You also have the audience who feels what Mayweather has done to become the attraction he is today is what draws the people in and garner the massive buyrates and paydays. The method was working until Mayweather’s lackluster fight against Manny Pacquiao which in turn caused a horrible PPV buyrate against Andre Berto. The fight reportedly generated between 400-500,000 buys.
Boxing fans are more educated now. They just don’t want to see trash talk. They want to see knockouts. No one does it better than Golovkin whose 33-0 with 30 of those wins by KO and sent his last 20 opponents crumbling to the canvas.
If Golovkin does what many expect on Saturday night against Lemieux then a new era in boxing has begun.
