IN a revelation that may well strike fear into the hearts of Gennady Golovkin’s prospective rivals, the Kazakh middleweight’s trainer, Abel Sanchez, insists his star pupil can get even better. Sanchez insists that “GGG” has much more to show but will do so only when his charge nails down the big fights he has long coveted.
“I think we’re far from finished with Golovkin,” Sanchez told Boxing News. “He has a lot more to develop but the only way to do it is not in the gym because there’s only so much you can do, but in the competitive fights that are to come. That teaching will be forced to come out by another good fighter in front of him. Hopefully the promoters can put together those big fights for him then I think he’ll develop into an even better fighter than he is right now. We as coaches are not magicians, all we can do is work with what we have, and what we have develops by being put in those difficult positions and difficult fights.”
The rise of Golovkin has, on the whole, been great for Sanchez and his camp, based at altitude in Big Bear Lake, California. The puncher’s frightening reign of terror has been a catalyst sparking a rise in demand for Sanchez’s services, but Abel, the coach of light-heavyweights, title challenger Nadjib Mohammedi and 15-0 Sullivan Barrera, 28-0 welter Konstantin Ponomarev (aged just 22), IBF No. 1 lightweight Denis Shafikov and others, must identify the potential among the masses.
“I turn down a lot of potential fighters, one, because we don’t have the space, the time, but two, because a lot of them just want to come up because Golovkin is there,” Sanchez reveals. “The guys that we allow to come up and train with us are guys that are very serious about their craft, guys with good teams that are willing to provide them with the financial resources so that we can get the most out of them staying up here. They are at 7,000 feet and they are removed from LA and the metropolitan areas so if you go up there you go up there for a reason and it’s not just to hang out. It’s to learn your business and become a better fighter.”
There is also the plain fact that Golovkin is not a permanent fixture; like most boxers, he is only resident in camp when he has a fight approaching. Even when he is there, Sanchez has so many pros, he has to schedule their boxing training in at set times, although they do tend to run as a group, at 7am sharp.
“Everybody wants to beat Golovkin,” Sanchez laughs. “He happens to be a horse, he runs like a gazelle, so it’s very difficult but that inspires everybody else around him to better him and to have that competitive spirit in the gym.”
