Golovkin Coming to LA This Week To Start Training For Foe TBD

Gennady Golovkin, the Bieber-faced bomber, is due to arrive in Los Angeles this week, and will begin training for a July fight, likely on July 19, against opponent TBD.

Ole TBD could be Daniel Geale, whose May 24 scrap against Matthew Macklin was blown up when the headline bout for that date, a Mike Perez-Bryant Jennings tussle, was cancelled. That’s because Perez hurt his left shoulder in training.

“We don’t have an opponent confirmed yet,” Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler, of K2, told me. “We hope to have that confirmed this week.”

The date will be either July 19 or July 26, the site TBD, and HBO will air the faceoff, he said.

“Geale is in the mix,” he continued. “He would make sense, he’s a former champion, but nothing is confirmed. We’ve made him offers before which he hasn’t accepted.”

I asked Geale’s promoter, Gary Shaw, if a Golovkin-Geale fight will occur.  “I don’t know, as with all fights, there are always some blocks, but I am trying to make the fight,” Shaw said.  “The dumbest thing I read is Matthew Macklin talking about a conspiracy. I lose serious money with the fight coming down, maybe he wants to cover my losses?”

Now, on the subject of offers not accepted…it looked like a Triple G-Julio Cesar Chavez Jr fight would be crafted for July 19, but Junior turned up his nose at that tangle. Why? He didn’t care for a deal structure which would have tied him to promoter Top Rank for longer, I guess, than he’s comfortable with. The money promoter Bob Arum was guaranteeing him seems like a more than healthy amount to me, but I’m not in the negotiating rooms. Loeffler, ever so mild in manner, didn’t take the bait when I asked if perhaps Chavez was ducking a Golovkin bout. Loeffler said he doesn’t like it when others weigh in on negotiations he’s involved in when they are working with limited info, so he wouldn’t go there…but he did say that he thinks Golovkin made purse and weight and site concessions that should have made it easier for Junior to sign off on the bout.

“It seemed to make sense for both sides,” he said, ever so mildly. “I guess if he thought it would be an easy fight he would have taken the guaranteed money.”

Golovkin has been helping his mom, back in the Kazakhstan, deal with the death of her husband and his father. Loeffler said the boxer is one of the strongest people he’s ever met, in dealing with adversity, so he’s confident the fighters’ head is screwed on tight.

Loeffler said he aims to keep the momentum, in regards to ratings–GGG took part in the third highest rated boxing show in 2013–and popularity, in the US and overseas, chugging along.

As for Perez, results on an MRI come back tomorrow (Tuesday), so Loeffler will know more about resetting his squareoff vs. Jennings then. “With Stiverne’s win over Arreola, the Perez-Jennings fight is crucial, as it determines another mandatory (for the WBC belt-holder),” the promoter stated.

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