Golovkin gets May 5 bout after all
Unbeaten middleweight to take on Martirosyan
Boxing’s tradition of having a notable fight on Cinco de Mayo weekend will continue this year, but it won’t feature a Mexican boxer in the main event or be held in Las Vegas.
Undefeated middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin will make a title defense May 5 against 11th-hour replacement Vanes Martirosyan for an Hbo-televised main event at the Stubhub Center in Carson, California. Tom Loeffler, Golovkin’s promoter, announced the bout on Wednesday.
Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 knockouts), from Karaganda, Kazakhstan, was scheduled to fight on May 5 against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in a rematch of their controversial September draw. But Alvarez withdrew April 3 from the scheduled rematch at T-mobile Arena, and on Wednesday he was suspended for six months by the Nevada Athletic Commission for twice testing positive for a banned substance.
Alvarez is eligible to return in August and is expected to pursue a Mexican Independence Weekend showdown with Golovkin in September.
But for now, Golovkin is focused on Martirosyan and got his wish of fighting May 5 despite many obstacles.
“There were so many moving parts in such a short time to try to salvage the date because of the late time frame Canelo actually acknowledged that he wasn’t going to fight May 5,” Loeffler said. “We saved the date, but this really put us behind the eight ball.”
Golovkin, 36, will put his WBA and WBC belts on the line, and if successful, he’ll match Bernard Hopkins’ record of 20 straight middleweight title defenses.
The fighter known as “Triple G” also holds the IBF strap, but that sanctioning body didn’t deem Martirosyan as a worthy opponent.
Golovkin could be stripped of the belt for not fighting the IBF’S mandatory challenger Sergiy Derevyanchenko. Loeffler plans to file for an exception.
Martirosyan (36-3-1, 21 KOS), a 2004 U.S. Olympian of Armenian descent, will be moving up from junior middleweight and hasn’t fought in nearly two years. Martirosyan, 31, is coming off a May 2016 defeat to Erislandy Lara at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.
“Triple G-canelo is still the biggest fight in boxing, so if there’s a way to make that fight we will do everything we can on our side to make it,” Loeffler said. “If Triple G doesn’t beat Vanes, there is no Canelo fight.
“You gotta give Vanes a lot of credit for taking this fight on this short of notice.”
Contact Gilbert Manzano at gmanzano@reviewjournal.com. Follow @Gmanzano24 on Twitter.