Boxing News 2016: Bernard Hopkins a possible opponent for Golovkin if Canelo won’t fight

There is a chance unified middleweight titlist Gennady Golovkin could land a potential big fight against retiring veteran boxer Bernard Hopkins in 2016.

According to K2 Promotions managing director Tom Loeffler, his client, the Kazakh knockout artist, could end up fighting Hopkins this year if WBC middleweight champ Saul “Canelo” Alvarez backs out. Golovkin has been looking for a marketable opponent and Hopkins could be the undefeated Kazakh’s best shot aside from Alvarez to further boost his boxing legacy.

Like us on Facebook

“I’ve always said that if there’s a middleweight champion willing to fight him, it’s always going to be the priority,” Loeffler said, reports Boxing Scene. “If [Billy Joe] Saunders isn’t going to fight, if Canelo is not going to fight, we would consider a marketable name at 168 and Hopkins is more active than [Andre] Ward is, so it makes sense.”

Hopkins is coming off a unanimous decision loss to Sergey Kovalev in November last year, but the 51-year-old was the first to take the multi-titled Russian to a full 12-round distance. Earlier this month, Hopkins called out the likes of Golovkin and Carl Froch, insisting the defeat against Kovalev will not be his last fight. But while the interest between Hopkins' and Golovkin’s camps is mutual, Loeffler noted that Golovkin must take care of his IBF mandatory challenger Dominic Wade way first.

“It’s an interesting fight, Bernard’s a legend within the sport,” Loeffler added. “But we have to get this IBF mandatory out of the way and we would always consider that.”

Golovkin is expected to face Wade, an upcoming American boxer, on Apr. 23 at the Madison Square Garden as part of GGG’s voluntary title defense before possibly taking on Alvarez in September. It would be interesting to see Golovkin take on a natural light heavyweight, but against an aging Hopkins, it would certainly be a mismatch in favour of the Kazakh.