Gennadiy Gennadyevich Golovkin vs. Sergio Gabriel Martínez

Within the realm of possibility late this year, or next.

https://boxeodecampeones.com/index....claro-que-puede-matarme-o-yo-darle-una-clase/

Martínez has stated that a match with Golovkin sits atop his shortlist of goals before retiring for good. While this should, in 2023, be something we all laugh off with a wistful sigh, it actually could become a thing.

GGG is WBA's current "Super" world champion at middleweight after thrashing Ryōta Murata last spring, and Sexy Sergio is, by dint of the WBA continuing to be a circus of forever escalating absurdity, ranked #2 at 160lbs - just one spot from being his mandatory. Technically he does still have two men ranked above him - present #1 contender Michael Zerafa plus "regular" world champion Erislandy Lara - but he is a considerably bigger money draw than either of them and boxing fans are notoriously unscrupulous little trainwreck-gawking carny *****-asses, so even now and given the circumstances this fight would likely do very well financially.

Now, as for those circumstances...

Martínez has a ten round tune-up scheduled in April in his native Argentina. When he steps in the ring he will have turned 48 years of age (next month). Golovkin will himself be celebrating a 41st birthday in that same month. A fight where the principals combine for just a year shy of freaking ninety really has no business interesting anyone, but...I have to admit even I'm slightly tantalized by the idea this might happen. From the very mouth of Martínez, "either Golovkin might kill me, or get schooled".

GGG has been on a gradual decline, and compared with his prime self he looked dreadful this past September in his third encounter with Canelo. This is an opponent that he previously had deserved to beat rather clearly twice, IMO - and in this go-round he never looked fully in control for a moment, and lost on my card 7-4-1. Furthermore, he is on a stretch of both inconsistent form and inactivity. He turned back the clock and looked vintage against Murata but some of that could be chalked up to a favorable styles match-up, and he could not carry that momentum into his third-strike opportunity to gain victory over Álvarez. The hunger, the focus, the "Big Drama Show" feel of yesteryear, just are not shining through of late. Meanwhile, somehow Martínez, once thought retired by injury permanently all the way back in 2014, has kept a busier schedule in the last three years than Golovkin. Yep, factual, check it. Maravilla has fought twice more in that span, actually - though granted, it was Brian Rose and four random dinks.

addendum 1: I picked the mid-September weekend because Golovkin does traditionally have a match then. It also squares with Martínez razzle-dazzling yet another random dink five months prior and then having ample time for rest before starting a new training camp.

addendum 2: much as I will absolutely circle this on my calendar and watch it with morbid fascination, it does mean less than 1% of what it would have meant to either man's career and legacy had it taken place when it should've. Which is a solid decade ago.

To put into perspective how late this will be happening: it already felt like it might be made "in the nick of time" while Golovkin and Martínez respectively had a few vestiges of their prime left, when it was being sighted for a main event on HBO, when both were hot commodities featured on that network. It has now been four entire calendar years since the last ever boxing telecast on HBO... and that itself was 4½ years after Miguel Cotto bird-dogged the Ring Magazine and WBC middleweight championships from a gimpy Martínez.

 

I mean... you have to shave off about 80% of the base points it would have been worth in 2013 due to GGG being a slowed-down 41 with visibly wilting passion for the sport.

Then again, Maravilla would have to get a 5x bonus multiplier for being seven years older, pushing 50, and having been written off as too physically deteriorated to ever box again with a bum knee when he was in thirties, with a layoff of half a dozen years.

Delving any deeper into this calculus might melt my brain.

 

Aside: can we just marvel at how completely inscrutable the WBA's internal decision making process is? How exactly do they justify the number two ranking?

Even had it been five guys all roughly equivalent to Brian Rose, instead of Brian Rose and four random dinks - that still ought to fall well short of being ranked number two in the world, if that's your full CV after six years off following a loss, no?

 

Dude, he is champ emeritus - don't give him any ideas. Could very well see him mulling this over with enough people's encouragement, wartime or no.