Gennady Golovkin intends to carry on boxing irrespective of whether he wins or loses against Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
Very few fighters have continued competing at the elite level into their fifth decade but Golovkin, who turned 40 in April, is heading into one of his career-defining contests at the T-Mobile Arena.
The only blemishes in his storied 44-fight career have come against Alvarez – a draw in September 2017 and a narrow points loss 12 months later – and the Kazakh now has a chance to set the record straight.
But the two-time unified world middleweight champion, whose 20 title defences in a row in the division before his defeat to Alvarez equalled Bernard Hopkins’ record, doubts this weekend will be a swansong.
“I would love to have a fight in my home country of Kazakhstan,” Golovkin told the PA news agency. “You’ll see me in the ring (again), most likely I’ll continue.”
Golovkin is leaving the 160lb division where he has boxed since his amateur days in a bid to avenge the sole loss on his ledger and in the process dethrone Alvarez as undisputed super-middleweight champion.
Alvarez has vowed to send Golovkin into retirement as the pair, former sparring partners once upon a time, have traded verbal barbs in the lead-up to their trilogy showdown.
“What he says, how he behaves just shows who he is in reality, not a boxer but as a person,” Golovkin said. “When you see and hear that, you want to turn your face away and ignore him.
“He stops being interesting, instead of tuning in, you tune out. What I feel from his behaviour is just indifference. I am a reasonable person, I don’t have any toxicity in me, nothing affects me.”
While there is little sign of the animosity subsiding, Golovkin
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