Gennady "GGG" Golovkin, the WBA and IBO middleweight champion, has repeatedly said his dream fight is against Floyd Mayweather Jr. and that he is willing and able to drop down to 154 pounds, where Mayweather is a champion, and fight him. Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s uncle Jeff Mayweather has a better idea though. Why not move to welterweight?
"I think it's ridiculous [to expect Mayweather to face Golovkin] but that's how it is," Jeff Mayweather said.
"The first thing is this, Floyd has no business fighting a guy like Golovkin. Not so much because he's great, but if he wants to fight Floyd, why doesn't he come down to 147l pounds? Not 154 pounds, come down to 147 pounds just like what Floyd actually fights at. Floyd fought at 154 pounds just because he had the talent to go up and beat those guys. Floyd has never fought above 149 pounds, so why would he fight a guy that's 160 pounds?"
Of all the names Mayweather could fight in September, Golovkin is arguably the most exciting. He is undefeated, like Mayweather, and has knocked out 20 straight opponents, all middleweights. The knock on Golovkin is that he's untested against truly elite opposition, but the flip side is that he has called out the entire weight class, as well as some super middleweights, and been unable to get any of those top fighters in the ring.
Mayweather is no exception, and Jeff Mayweather's argument that Floyd Jr. should not face a 160-pounder is confusing, because Golovkin has said he would move down. Fighting at 154 pounds may not be ideal for Mayweather Jr., but he is a current champion at junior middleweight. Fighting at 147 pounds for Golovkin means cutting down 13 pounds by September 11. It is not happening.
Instead, Mayweather Jr. will likely face Andre Berto, or maybe Amir Khan if the backlash to Berto is too great, while Golovkin will seek a unification bout with IBF champion David Lemieux, and await the winner of Miguel Cotto vs. Canelo Alvarez for the WBC belt.
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