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Coming off of his title unification win on Saturday against Felix Sturm, IBF and WBA middleweight titlist Daniel Geale is reportedly going to look to face countryman Sam Soliman at home in Australia before moving on to a bigger fight:
"We’re not sure if we’ll put the fight on against Soliman in Sydney, where Daniel now resides, or we could go back to Tasmania, where he grew up," said Garry Francisco. "After Soliman we can look at taking on the likes of a Gennady Golovkin."
With the realities of the current boxing landscape being what they are, it's not any real surprise that Geale (28-1, 15 KO) and his management would want to extend his run as much as possible, and given that he's shown a willingness to at worst take a major fight one out of every three outings, I can't really get too upset with this.
But it's certainly a disappointing idea, too. Nothing against Soliman (42-11, 17 KO), as the 38-year-old veteran is a likable, tough fighter, and hasn't lost a fight in four years, but I don't think many see him as a legitimate contender at middleweight. He's done what has been asked of him, though, including a win on August 24 over Giovanni Lorenzo in an IBF eliminator. As much as one can in an official capacity, he's earned his title shot.
Obviously fans -- myself included -- want to see Geale face the likes of Gennady Golovkin or the Chavez Jr-Martinez winner or the Quillin-N'Jikam winner or Dmitry Pirog, or someone like that, but this is a pretty typical move.
One hitch in this plan's giddy-up might be that the WBA has ordered a fight between Golovkin and Geale (they ordered the Geale-Sturm winner to face Golovkin, more precisely) and they said they wanted it to take place before the end of 2012. If the WBA really pushes that, Geale could dump the WBA "super" title, as Golovkin holds the "regular" version of the belt, and boy, do I get sick of typing that stupid shit, which would be kind of a shame, really, given that Geale had to go to Germany and get a points win over Felix Sturm to win the damn thing, but what could you do, I guess? He has IBF obligations, too. And such is life in boxing, where unification rarely lasts.