Gennady Golovkin will take on challenger Grzegorz Proksa on Saturday, September 1, for the WBA Middleweight championship.
Golovkin, 30, the undefeated champion from Kazakhstan, has never fought in the United States and is looking to make an impression on the market to help boost his stock for future bookings and pay days.
Mitch Abramson of New York Daily News speculates that Golovkin, with a win, could see himself facing the winner of the WBC Middleweight championship fight on September 15, between Sergio Martinez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.
Tom Loeffler (via Abramson), Golovkin’s promoter, thinks the upcoming battle with Proksa is the fight the champ needs to propel him to the next level.
He has such a tremendous amateur career. Unfortunately, in the pros, he hasn’t fought a big name yet, and that’s what we’re looking to do now with Proksa, who’s a European champion with his debut on HBO. The goal is to make him a known commodity over here.
Both boxers bring power and the ability to end a fight in a moment’s notice to the ring Saturday night on HBO.
Golovkin is 23-0 with 20 knockouts while Proksa is 28-1 with 21 KO’s of his own.
The tale of the tape, though, lies in the pedigree and amateur experience of Golovkin. He is an incredible striker that uses nifty combinations and counterattacks to keep opponents on their toes and weary of landing their own strikes.
In addition to his undefeated record and impressive knockout margin, the Kazakhstani fighter was also a boxing silver medalist at the 2004 Olympic Games and World Championship winner in 2003.
As a professional, he’s dominated all opposition and hasn’t truly been tested to this point. With the spotlight on him under the bright lights of Las Vegas, he has everything to fight for in this one.
Consider this Golovkin’s “arrival” bout in the biggest boxing city in the world.
He's going to execute it to perfection by dropping the talented Proksa with a knockout blow, but he's going to take some punishment in return.
Proksa isn't exactly going to lay down at the challenge of taking on the champion. The south paw’s lone loss came in a highly contested decision to Kerry Hope of the United Kingdom. To clear the air about that one, he left no doubt and knocked out Hope in their rematch last month.
This is a make or break fight for both of these fierce strikers and will go down as the best slugfest of the night. It’s the biggest draw of the night in what looks to be a promising Saturday night of boxing on HBO.
Mike Hoag is a Trends and Traffic writer for Bleacher Report and also covers the Cleveland Browns and the NFL for the site. Follow him on Twitter @BigHoagowski.
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