Gennadiy Golovkin is once again on the hook to next face Erislandy Lara.
BoxingScene.com has confirmed that the WBA has re-ordered a title consolidation clash between its recognized middleweight beltholders. The development came hours after BoxingScene’s report that Golovkin vacated his IBF middleweight title in lieu of a mandatory title defense versus Brazil’s Esquiva Falcao.
The respective teams for Golovkin and Lara are once again forced to work out terms for their long overdue consolidation bout, this time with a 15-day negotiation period in lieu of the standard 30-day allotment. There is a chance that the fight heads to a purse bid or that one side simply vacates their version of the middleweight title, as the WBA brass has long ago lost its patience in bringing resolution to the matter.
Golovkin holds the WBA ‘Super’ middleweight title and is self-promoted through his GGG Promotions. Lara is the recognized WBA ‘Regular’ middleweight titlist and who fights under the Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) banner, with Tom Brown’s TGB Promotions listed as the recognized promoter in talks.
“Please consider this communication as a notification for mandatory negotiations for the WBA Middleweight division.,” WBA Championship Committee chairman Carlos Chavez stated to Golovkin via official letter, a copy of which was obtained by BoxingScene.com. “Please take notice that, pursuant to resolution 2022071514 (special permit request to box for unified super middleweight division) and championship rule C.11, you must defend the title against the next leading available contender within one hundred twenty (120) days from the date you became the champion.
“Since you won the super championship on April 09, 2022, the next obligatory championship bout is past due from August 08, 2022, and shall be against the world champion (official contender) Erislandy Lara.”
The bout was previously ordered on September 23, six days after Golovkin fell short in his trilogy clash with Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez last September 17 in Las Vegas. The bout took place at super middleweight, where Golovkin unsuccessfully challenged for Alvarez’s undisputed championship while his own WBA/IBF middleweight title reign was not at risk.
It was however, on the clock.
Golovkin (42-2-1, 37KOs) inherited Lara as a mandatory challenger upon stopping Murata in the ninth round of their April 9 title unification bout in Saitama, Japan. The 40-year-old Kazakh boxer defended his IBF belt while claiming the WBA ‘Super’ title with the win.
The WBA refrained from ordering Golovkin to next face Lara (29-3-3, 17KOs), due to an existing deal in place calling for the two-time unified middleweight titlist to face Alvarez in their trilogy clash. Golovkin had to get approval from the WBA, which represented his final exception in lieu of a mandatory title defense came with conditional approval from the WBA who reminded Golovkin that he would have 120 days to next face Lara.
“The [WBA] granted a special permission to [Golovkin] to move up a division and fight Saul Alvarez on September 17, with the condition that he would return to middleweight to face Lara and would not be granted another special permission,” Chavez specified at the time.
Golovkin found one final loophole, when he approached the IBF to enforce his mandatory versus Falcao. The WBA met with the IBF and agreed to allow Falcao (30-0, 20KOs) to leapfrog Lara in the mandatory title rotation, with the fight ordered just six days prior to the WBA deadline to finalize Golovkin-Lara.
The consolation prize for Lara was his being approved for a voluntary defense, as confirmed during the WBA Centennial Convention last December in Orlando, Florida.
Nearly four months passed from the ordered Golovkin-Falcao to present day without any firm updates from GGG Promotions, Top Rank (representing Falcao) or the IBF until BoxingScene.com learned that Golovkin was set to give up the title.
IBF representatives have since confirmed that the process will soon begin to order a vacant title fight. Falcao—a silver medalist for Brazil during the 2012 Tokyo Olympics—will likely next face Australia’s Michael Zerafa, who confirmed to BoxingScene.com his intentions to proceed with such a fight upon such invitation.
Golovkin is now back to where he was more than four months ago, though skepticism looms as to whether a fight with Lara will ever see the light of day.
Lara claimed the secondary WBA ‘World’ (Regular) middleweight title following a first-round knockout of aspiring contender Thomas ‘Cornflake’ LaManna last May 1 in Carson, California. The Cuban export previously served as a secondary WBA junior middleweight titlist, vacating the belt in favor of remaining at middleweight. He has since made one successful defense, an eighth-round knockout of Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan on May 28 in Brooklyn, New York.
Should either side refuse to go through with the fight, their title will be vacated and the middleweight division finally left with one recognized WBA titlist.
Golovkin previously held a secondary version of the WBA title before he was upgraded to full titlist in 2012. The historical waters were muddied in his number of true title defenses.
Several reports have him tied with Bernard Hopkins for the all-time middleweight mark with 20, though five came with the WBA ‘Regular’ title at stake. Felix Sturm was the WBA ‘Super’ champ, before losing to Daniel Geale in September 2012 in Oberhausen, Germany—hours before Golovkin’s fifth defense of his ‘Regular title in Verona, New York.
Geale was stripped in late 2012 for failure to defend versus Golovkin, though he received the chance to fight for his old belt. Golovkin stopped the Australian in the third round of their July 2014 clash, one of fifteen defenses enjoyed by Golovkin with the full WBA belt at stake. He later added the IBF and WBC titles, with all three belts at stake in September 2017 draw with Alvarez. He was stripped of the IBF belt prior to their September 2018 rematch, where Alvarez won by majority decision to claim the WBC/WBA titles and end Golovkin’s lengthy title reign.
Golovkin became a two-tour middleweight titlist following a twelve-round decision win over Sergiy Derevyanchenko in their sensational October 2019 slugfest. Just two defenses followed in more than three years, including his knockout win over Murata to regain the WBA title.
In the event of a purse bid, Golovkin is due 75-percent of the winning amount as the ‘Super’ champion. The remaining 25-percent would go to Lara.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox