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One of Boxing’s most exciting fighters was back in action last night at New York’s Madison Square Garden as middleweight Gennady Golovkin retained his WBA and IBO belts with an eight round throttling of local man Curtis Stevens.
But it wasn’t all Golovkin all the time as the challenger proved to have quicker hands and good skills, producing the best opposition to the man from Kazakhstan since Kassim Ouma in 2011.
One the bell rang, Golovkin discovered that he couldn’t just simply jump on NABF titlist Stevens, as the New Yorker earned some respect with a fast left hand and quick reactions.
Stevens at times was taking the fight to the champ during the first two rounds until Golovkin snapped off a hard left hook near the end of the second that froze the challenger until he was dropped hard with that same punch again moments later.
The Brooklyn man managed to beat the count and rode out the short time until round’s end. Stevens was understandably tentative in the third as he had learned to respect Golovkin’s punching power but got back in the contest late in the frame.
The fourth saw good two way action and was Stevens’ best round as he backed up and tagged Golovkin during several exchanges. But the Cinderella story didn’t continue as Golovkin bit down in the fifth and went to work, shutting down the challenger as Stevens had to focus on defense.
It was more of the same in the sixth as Golovkin started to mix in left hands to the body. This approach paid dividends in the seventh and particularly the eighth when Stevens was a walking defensive shell, covering up and getting hurt from the lefts to the body and the occasional headshots that made it through his guard.
After the eighth, a round which Stevens threw very few punches, the challenger’s corner elected to retire from the bout.
Golovkin sees his unbeaten record to 28-0 (25), retaining the WBA strap for the eighth time, stopping his 15th consecutive opponent. Stevens sees a four bout win streak snapped, falling to 25-4 (18).
While Golovkin put on a excellent performance, had Stevens possessed a concussive punch, the fight could have gone very differently. The 31 year old must improve his defense if he is to successfully clean out the middleweight division and move up to super middle.
The undercard saw ex-world cruiserweight title challenger Ola Afolabi, 20-3-4 (9), captured the vacant IBO belt with a majority decision over Lukasz Janik, 26-2 (14).
In a captivating ten round all-southpaw contest at heavyweight, Mike Perez, 20-0 (12), outfought heavy-punching Magomed Abdusalamov, 18-1 (18), who suffered a broken nose in the early going, posting a 97-92, 97-92 and 95-94 win despite losing a point for low blows.
