Tom Loeffler, manager of unified middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, has thumbed up a middleweight title defense against Chris Eubank Jr.
Eubank is flashy and popular: Tom Loeffler welcomes middleweight title defense for Gennadiy Golovkin
“GGG” made two fights in 2022. In the first, he unified the IBF and WBA 160-pound belts against Ryota Murata, whom he defeated by knockout in the ninth round.
Then he rose to 168 pounds for the first time in his career to challenge longtime rival Canelo Álvarez for the four belts in the category but fell by unanimous decision by scorecards of 116-112, 115-113, and 115-113.
So far it is unknown who will be his next rival, but Jaime Munguia’s team warned that he was going to make a strong offer to Golovkin. In addition, he has a WBA mandatory bout against Esquiva Falcao. However, Loeffler believes that Eubank Jr would be a good matchup for Gennady.
“Eubank is flashy and popular. He could be the rising star,” Loeffler said during an interview with Sky Sports. “When you look at a legend, I’d say GGG is a legend of the middleweight division. Eubank Jr I would describe as a rising star and GGG is a legend. You never know down the road that could be an interesting fight, if that’s something that Gennadiy’s interested in doing.”
“Eubank Jr has a name,” the manager went on, “he’s building his brand. It really depends on what Gennadiy plans to do. He’s the one that makes all the decisions for his career. I know he’s got a mandatory coming up, so most likely he’ll go in that direction to defend his title against the mandatory and then after that you never know. There’s a number of big names out there that could make sense for him. It’s really one step at a time.”
Gennady Golovkin has a record of 42-2-1 with 37 wins by way of knockout. His only two losses were against Canelo. For his part, Eubank Jr will face Liam Smith on January 21 at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.
