Yeah, it’s Canelo Alvarez’s fault that there will be no Canelo-Golovkin 2 on May 5. Whether by carelessness or flat-out crookedness, Canelo’s ingestion of clenbuterol is what killed the fight. There’s no denying any of that.
But don’t let Team Golovkin’s masterful public relations machine sell you on the fact that Canelo’s mistakes pushed poor ol’ Gennady Golovkin into a bout with Vanes Martirosyan.
Fighting a second tier junior middleweight with two years of inactivity is 100% on the Kazakh KO machine and his team. Actually, Martirosyan is a step or two up from what they wanted to be facing that day.
Their first stab at finding a patsy had them focused on undefeated 21-year-old Tijuana club fighter Jamie Munguia—a crudely-skilled kid who was fighting at welterweight as recently as last year. Thankfully, the Nevada State Athletic Commission had the good sense and general human compassion to reject Munguia as a sacrificial lamb on Cinco de Mayo weekend.
Then, efforts to snare Irish no-hoper “Spike” O’Sullivan fell apart after the move away from HBO PPV to regular HBO shrunk the available money to be paid to the human sacrifice. O’Sullivan’s rejection of the purse offer sent Team Golovkin away from Nevada and into the loving embrace of an apparently much less demanding California commission, eager to have a real Cinco de Mayo presence after years of seeing that big fight weekend firmly tied to the bright lights of Las Vegas.
So, open up the StubHub Center in Carson, California and line up the suckers for an un-Golovkin-like ticket price gouge ($750 for ringside seats, $50 bucks for the cheapest of cheap seats)—fans will be treated to a good, old fashioned bloodletting.
And because Martirosyan needs a payday—any payday—after two years on the bench, he will gladly take that bloodletting. At the very least, the Glendale, California native, who resides just about a half hour away from the fight site, will save a ton on travel and hotel costs. He’ll probably even be able to convalesce in a hospital minutes away from his own home.
Again, blame the lost Canelo-GGG May 5 rematch on Canelo, but don’t blame any of Golovkin’s efforts after that lost fight on Canelo. The pursuit of Martirosyan, for example, is vintage Golovkin—and entirely in keeping with the business strategy that brought him to star status as the object of rampant man-love fixation within the “hardcore” base of boxing fandom.
Looking over a career that has been remarkably hand-rigged and filled with a copious degree of entitlement, GGG rose to prominence fighting smaller men and those stylistically tailor-made to make him look good. A casual look at Golovkin’s resume shows that of twenty “world” title fights, at least ten have come against fighters moving up in weight from at least one division below and none—until Daniel Jacobs and Canelo Alvarez—have come against anyone with the physicality or skill level needed to even make Golovkin breathe hard.
Most interesting, though, is the fact that, while GGG ran through a minefield of deactivated mines at zero risk to himself, his people had no critical eye turned towards them at all. They’ve gotten nothing but free passes from day one and are still coasting from Sergio Martinez not fighting their guy and from two years’ worth of masterful publicity generated in their pursuit of big money middleweight bouts with natural junior middleweights Miguel Cotto and Canelo Alvarez.
After years and years of beating up who he wants with zero criticism as to opponent selection, is it any mystery why his people now feel entitled to yet another softball?
When Golovkin tears through Martirosyan on May 5, he’ll be tying Bernard Hopkins’ record of 20 world middleweight title defenses—making history with a characteristically soft touch in vintage Golovkin style.
Forget about long overdue mandatory defenses (he only fights those when they are of the Dominic Wade variety and don’t risk a payday down the road). And REALLY forget those opponents who might use some skill or guile to make Golovkin work—that’s not “big drama show” and it displeases him and those who love him unconditionally to see him look anything less than the male fairytale beast of modern boxing mythology.
The man with his “Mexican Style” is back to beat up smaller pretenders and clumsy fall guys. Fire up the slick TV commercials and crank up the publicity machine, they’re taking GGG old school because, damn it, he’s entitled to the path of least resistance.