Only a week after his successful title defence against Marco Antonio Rubio, Gennady Golovkin has already signed a deal for his next match.
The middleweight world champion Golovkin (31-0, 28 knockouts) attended Martin Murray’s recent decision victory over Domenico Spada in Monte Carlo and now the two men have signed to fight each other on February 21 in Monaco.
By securing a win over Rubio, Golovkin was positioned by his promoter Tom Loeffler to stand as the mandatory challenger to the WBC middleweight belt belonging to Miguel Cotto, who is training for a title defence in May against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
“Fighting Rubio was a strategic decision for Gennady to now be the mandatory for the ‘Canelo’-Cotto winner,” Loeffler said. “It’s hard to predict what they’ll do, but it’s my job to create opportunities for Gennady. ‘Canelo’ accepts almost every challenge, so that could happen. With Cotto, it’s hard to predict. I know they’re both warriors.”
