Just a week after the WBC updated their rankings to include Gennady Golovkin as the #1 Middleweight contender, the WBO has followed in the aforementioned organization’s footsteps to do the same. Golovkin, who had relinquished both his IBF and WBA titles this year, seemed to have no taste in fighting the mandatories of his belts after his rather drastic and impromptu actions to vacate them, but with two sanctioning bodies now ranking him as the #1, is GGG planning something else now?
The Kazakhstani fighter, who currently sports a record of 42 wins, 2 losses, 1 draw and 37 KO’s, has said little about his future plans other than deliberating what his next step would be in boxing after vacating both the WBA and IBF world titles when he was mandated to fight these sanctioning bodies’ respective contenders at Middleweight. Gennady Golovkin’s announcement could mean anything; from retirement to moving to another division, yet both the WBC and WBO seem to know more behind-the-scenes judging by the way they positioned Golovkin as the #1 contender within their Middleweight rankings.
The two sanctioning bodies’ decision to put Gennady Golovkin within close reach of a title shot could be purely coincidental, and wouldn’t even be the first case of this happening such as in the case of Naoya Inoue (24-0, 21 KO’s) who has been instantly placed as the #1 contender on various ranking boards in the Super Bantamweight division just shortly after his titles at Bantamweight to challenge one of the two unified champions at 122 lbs, Stephen Fulton (21-0, 8 KO’s). As a former undisputed champion and WBO super champion – the latter which offers him some privileges in gaining instant title opportunities when moving to another division, it would be natural for Inoue to be given some leeway when it comes to opportunities.
Gennady Golovkin is no less renowned than Inoue, and under normal circumstances his positioning on the WBC and WBO ranking boards would not be frowned upon. However, his decision to vacate his titles seems to have clearly indicated his intent not to fight anytime soon. It begs to reason why both sanctioning bodies would seem to think that Golovkin would vacate his world titles, just to fight for either one of their titles.
WBO champion, Janibek Alimkhanuly (13-0, 8 KO’s) – who like Golovkin is also Kazakhstani – might be a more realistic opponent than WBC champion Jermall Charlo (32-0, 22 KO’s) who seems to be out till the summer, but it would be rather odd for GGG to vacate his titles just to face a world champion again, when he could have easily tried to sort out a unification fight when he was still a world champion himself which also would have prevented him from fighting his mandatories.
There is the theory that Gennady Golovkin’s name carries such weight that these sanctioning bodies are eager to profit off his brand by handing quick title opportunities – which they would benefit from if he became a champion, but their decisions also take away the chance for other fighters to fight for a world title instead.
Hopefully, one of the two sanctioning bodies will soon clarify their decision and order Golovkin to fight whoever he needs to to either become a champion, or gain that opportunity, rather than just making him the #1 contender for potential financial benefits while neglecting other fighters who should deserve the same shot.
