Gennady Golovkin’s next fight on June 8 could be against Canadian Steve Rolls or Hassan N’Dam on DAZN at Madison Square Garden in New York, according to ESPN. Golovkin (38-1-1, 34 KOs) has made offers to both fighters, and now it’s a wait and see game to see which of the two takes the fight.
This is an important fight for the 37-year-old Golovkin, because he’s coming off of a layoff and a loss to Saul Canelo Alvarez last September. It’s the first fight for Golovkin of his three-year deal with DAZN, and he’ll want to get off to a good start with the streaming giant by looking impressive and most importantly bringing in a lot of new subscribers to the platform to see him. N’Dam and Rolls aren’t household names in the United States unfortunately with the boxing public. The ultra hardcore fans will recognize both guys, but for most people, they’ll likely have never heard of either guy, especially the 34-year-old Rolls. Even though he comes from nearby Canada, he hasn’t fought world class opposition for him to get noticed. That’s what makes him such an odd choice for Team Golovkin to be making a fight offer to. It makes no sense for Golovkin to be looking to fight Rolls. This isn’t like a Rocky movie where Apollo Creed picks out a no-hoper in Rocky Balboa and gets the fight of his life. Rolls will likely be steam-rolled by GGG in a non-competitive fight.
Golovkin cannot afford to lose his June 8th fight, because he’ll be facing Canelo Alvarez in a trilogy contest next September on DAZN. That fight will bring in the subscribers to DAZN, and put a smile on the management of that companies’ faces. Golovkin vs. Rolls or N’Dam likely won’t bring in the subscribers. It would be a major work of promotion to try and get boxing fans interested in seeing Golovkin fight Rolls. N’Dam is a lot better, but he’s still a lot more accomplished than Rolls.
N’Dam (37-3, 21 KOs) would be more desirable of the two names, as he’s a former WBA middleweight world champion, and has fought a lot of top level fighters during his long 15 year pro career, but he’s also ranked high at #3 with the World Boxing Council. That high ranking with the WBC means N’Dam will get a world title shot against popular WBC champion Saul Canelo Alvarez in the future if the Mexican star doesn’t lose to someone or vacate his WBC title in order to fight the guys he wants to face.
#9 IBF Rolls (19-0, 11 KOs) has less to lose in taking a fight against GGG. Rolls won’t be getting a world title shot anytime soon if ever, so he might as well take the fight with Golovkin as long as the offer is good enough to make the risk worthwhile.
