GGG Eyes Return in March

GGG Eyes Return in March

By Jack Thomas Davies

Gennady Golovkin will likely be back in the ring in late March to defend his IBF middleweight title against mandatory challenger, Kamil Szeremeta.

Although the return of GGG is welcome amongst boxing fans, we must learn about his opponent.

Although Szeremeta is unbeaten he holds a somewhat weak resume. Although mandatories are part of any championship reign, we would hope that GGG spends his limited years left in the game at the highest level.

Golovkin (40-1-1, 35 KOs) and his promoter Tom Loeffler wanted to get the International Boxing Federation’s mandatory defense out of the way early so that they could be available for the bigger fights.

The reaction for this fight on social media has not been entirely positive, with some fans demanding a rematch against Sergiy Derevyanchenko, who GGG closely beat on points last October.

During Szeremeta (21-0, 5 KOs) seven year professional career, Golovkin would be his biggest step up. Yet, it is the nature of some divisional rankings to be inflated.

Here are the Szereta’s last 10 opponents:

Oscar Cortes

Edwin Palacios

Andrew Francillette

Ruben Diaz

Alessandro Goddi

Sebastian Skrzypczynski

Jose Antonio Villalobos

Kassim Ouma – 41-years-old

Artem Karpets

Patrick Mendy

“There’s a possibility of him fighting at the end of March,” said Hearn about Golovkin. “It has a lot to do with who Canelo fights, and you kind of have to wait for that. We’ve got Golovkin, Callum Smith, and Billy Joe. They’re all queuing up for that fight,” said Hearn.

In any case, mandatories are a large part of the boxing world. We just hope to see a few more classic GGG highlights at top level before he walks away from the sport.