After very impressive wins this month by stars like Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin, the middleweight division seems to be heating up with many interesting fights coming in the next few weeks and some potential match ups that seem to be looming in the upcoming months.
This past weekend, GGG defended his WBA middleweight title in an action packed fight with tough contender Willie Monroe Jr, who showed a lot of heart and won a round or two against the tough Kazakh. In the post-fight interview Golovkin made it clear that he wants Canelo Alvarez and Miguel Cotto as soon as possible. As mouth-watering as those match ups might sound, it does not look like they will take place this year even if he is the mandatory challenger for Cotto's title.
On Wednesday rumors began to go around the boxing world that Golovkin's promoter, K2, started inquiring further on a potential fight against British superstar, Carl Froch. A fight against ‘The Cobra’ would not only increase Golovkin's stock but it would very likely pack a soccer stadium in the UK and create an all time great fight.
Aside from Froch, Golovkin is also looking to take all the belts in the middleweight division so a fight against the tough the Irishman and WBO champion Andy Lee. 'Irish' Andy Lee won his WBO middleweight title against tough Russian Matt Korobov in December of last year. In April, Lee defended his belt against former champion, Peter Quillin, in a slugfest that resulted in a draw. During the fight 'Irish' injured his shoulder and will be inactive for some time while he gets healthy again. Now Lee is being linked to many fighters including WBA 'regular' champ Danny Jacobs, but there also strong rumors that he could fight fellow Irishman Mathew Macklin for the world title in Dublin, which would be an outstanding event. While Lee recovers from his injury, number one contender Billy Joe Saunders will fight for the interim WBO title against a TBA opponent although it looks likely to be against rising British star Chris Eubank Jr in a rematch of what was a closely contested bout last year.
Miguel Cotto will be defending his WBC middleweight title against Aussie, Daniel Geale on June 6th on HBO. Geale, a former unified champ himself, was easily handled in three rounds by Golovkin last year. Cotto will be making his first defense of the belt he won with a devastating win over long time champion Sergio Martinez. Cotto put Martinez down four times before winning by TKO in the 10th round. If Cotto defends successfully against Geale, a showdown against Mexican superstar Canelo Alvarez will be next on the agenda. A fight with Canelo will be a blockbuster and yet another quality fight to add to the extraordinary year boxing has had. Canelo would give Cotto some major problems but for this writer the fight is up in the air at the moment and will be very competitive. The winner would be the mandatory for Gennady Golovkin in what would be the biggest middleweight fight in recent memory.
Golden Boy just recently finalized a deal that will see hard-hitting David Lemieux take on veteran Hassan N'Dam for the IBF middleweight strap on June 20th via a network that is yet to be determined. Lemieux is coming off a hard fought win against contender Gabriel Rosado and is finally getting a much deserved title shot and N'Dam is a former two time interim champion in the division with a lot of experience in the big fights. The IBF title has been won by five different men in the last two years including Geale, Jermain Taylor and Felix Sturm. There are quite a few big fish within the division and winning the title for either of these men will be a massive boost and will create opportunities to fight the likes Quillin, Golovkin and Jacobs.
The middleweight division has not been this strong since Bernard Hopkins was a champion and we are very lucky to be witnessing so many interesting fights in a single division. A lot of big names are destined to fight against each other in what will be very big events for the sport. Who says boxing is dead? It most definitely isn’t within the middleweight division.