By: Hans Themistode
For as long as Gennadiy Golovkin has stayed atop the middleweight mountain, fans are seemingly ready to push him from its lofty heights.
With Golovkin (40-1-1, 35 KOs) in the midst of his 14th year in the pro’s, the Kazakhstan native has reigned as a world champion for roughly a decade. Not only has he held a piece of the middleweight crown since 2010 but the vast majority of his contests have been one-sided. Canelo Alvarez and Daniel Jacobs, of course, have been the exceptions. Yet, in October of 2019, Sergiy Derevyanchenko joined those aforementioned names as he gave Golovkin the fight of his life.
Despite walking into their contest as a heavy favorite and regardless of his first-round knockdown, Golovkin was forced to dig deep to pick up the win. While Derevyanchenko was given praise for his efforts, Golovkin on the other hand, faced a mountain of criticism.
At the soon to be age of 39, the days of Golovkin blasting through his opponents are mostly thought to be long gone. Coming to grips with his boxing mortality is something that the long-reigning champion can hardly process. The typical prime years of a fighter reside from their late 20s to their early 30s. Of course though, there has been a few anomalies such as Bernard Hopkins, Floyd Mayweather Jr., and Manny Pacquiao.
At the moment, it’s unclear if Golovkin will follow in their distinguished footsteps. But as he wraps up his last few training sessions for his middleweight title defense against mandatory challenger Kamil Szeremeta this coming Friday, Golovkin claims that he’s feeling as good as he has in the past several years.
“It’s difficult for me to say whether I’m in my prime or not,” said Golovkin during a recent media conference call. “But during training when I do sparring I feel great. I feel as strong, powerful, tenacious and have a lot of stamina as I had five years ago. Maybe even better.”