Gennady Golovkin wasted little time Saturday night taking his power directly to tough Irishman Matthew Macklin.
Golovkin dominated, then dropped Macklin with a left hook to the liver that left Macklin writhing in pain and unable to answer the 10-count at the Foxwoods Resort and Casinol in Mashantucket, Conn..
Many felt Golovkin was finally facing a true middleweight, but Macklin appeared overmatched from the start, suffering a nasty cut over his left eye in the second round. Golovkin outlanded Macklin 58-29 in total punches.
“This is my regular fight because I’m the champion today,” Golovkin (27-0, 23 KOs) said in his broken English. “This was my perfect position for a body shot.”
Macklin was imp;ressed by his opponent. “Without a shadow of a doubt, he’s definitely the best fighter I’ve ever fought,” Macklin (29-5, 20 KOs) said.
“I was planning to exploit his weakness, which was inexperience. He’s only been 10 rounds once. But credit to him. He was patient, and hard to hit clean. He put the pressure on and was hard to hit clean.”
Macklin said Golovkin took him out of his fight but going first to the head and then the body with patience.
“Every shot is hard, even his jab,” Macklin said. “The reason he got me so good to the body is I was preoccupied with defending the uppercuts that he got me downstairs.”
It’s unsure who Golovkin will face next, but after his performance against Macklin, it’s likely he will have trouble finding an opponent.
Gonzales-Oosthuizen draw: Little-known Brandon Gonzales fought the more experienced South African Thomas Oosthuizen to a draw in the main undercard bout at the Foxwoods Resort Casino.
Both fighters came in undefeated, and left still unbeaten. The 6-foot-4 Oosthuizen (21-0-2, 13 KOs) won on one judge’s scorecard 96-94 in the 10-round super middleweight bout. Gonzales (17-0-1, 10 KOs) won 98-92 on another card and the third judge, Clark Sammartino, scored it 95-95.
In another undercard fight, light middleweight prospect Willie Nelson survived a couple of cuts and a tough finish by Argentine Luciano Cuello and won a bloody, unanimous 10-round decision against Cuello to improve to 21-1-1 (12 KOs).
Nelson threw nearly 100 more punches than Cuello and landed 33 more, 231-198. But Cuello came on strong in the late rounds and nearly had a bleeding Nelson out on his feet in the 10th round, but Nelson held on and survived the onslaught.
Cuello (32-3, 16 KOs), came in with the only losses on his record to former middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez and current super welterweight champ Canelo Alvarez.
