Gennadiy Golovkin, 40-years-old, has no intention of retiring from the sport.
Since 2018, Golovkin had only fought a total of four times before he entered the ring for his trilogy fight with Mexican superstar Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, which took place on Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Golovkin moved up to super middleweight for the first time in his career – to challenge Canelo for his WBA, IBF, WBC, WBO world titles.
Their first two encounters, which took place at middleweight, were very close – but the trilogy bout was mostly a one-sided affair in Canelo’s favor.
The scores were 115-113, 116-112 and 115-113 – but most ringside observers scored the fight for Canelo by a wider margin.
Golovkin had no excuses regarding the first undisputed loss of his pro career.
“I want to shake hands with Canelo, congrats. The guy is a real warrior and if you don’t understand, you don’t understand nothing,” Golovkin said.
Their first bout took place in 2017, with the encounter ending in a controversial twelve round split draw. A year later, Canelo had his hand raised with a close twelve round majority decision.
Golovkin fully intends to continue his career in the middleweight division – where he holds the WBA, IBF, IBO world titles.
“Remember guys, I still have three belts at 160. I’ll come back guys. I’m still champion guys,” Golovkin said.
One of the potential options at 160 is a showdown with WBC world champion Jermall Charlo.
The fight with Canelo was the final bout of Golovkin’s contract with streaming service DAZN. He now has the ability to fight on any network of his choosing. Charlo is aligned with Premier Boxing Champions, who have exclusive network deals with Showtime and Fox Sports.
BoxingScene