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Abel Sanchez: If Cotto or Canelo won't fight GGG, who cares?

Abel Sanchez discusses Gennady Golovkin's win over David Lemieux, plus their goal to unify the belts in the middleweight division.

On the approach to beating Lemieux

"We knew that we could box him and it would be effective. Gennady finally showed that he's got some boxing skills. This fight posed kind of a mental threat to him, that this guy could something, but after the first round the jab was so efficient that it was difficult for David to do anything."

On Gennady figuring it out after round one

"He looked at me and said, 'Coach, I got this.' It's fun to have a guy that goes out there so cerebral, goes out there and figures out what the other guy's doing in the first round. David didn't come out like I thought he was gonna come out. Maybe (Golovkin) wouldn't have had a chance to figure him out. But David gave him that opportunity. If David comes out hard, maybe it's a different story. Maybe Gennady doesn't figure him out so early."

On Lemieux's power

"I said before the fight that Curtis Stevens was the biggest puncher we have faced to date and this guy wasn't a bigger puncher. What this guy was -- he had a belt, he was IBF champion, so automatically that makes you better. Better technically, better physically, better mentally. So we knew that because of that, he would pose those kind of threats. But Gennady said he wasn't a bigger puncher than Curtis, what he was was a strong kid, but limited in skills. The IQ was different. It was a different class."

On whether or not he thought Golovkin would go for the finish after round five

"Gennady didn't have that look on his face that he's -- sometimes he has that look, I can see that he wants to hurt somebody. He didn't have that look. He wanted to keep working, put his shots where he wanted to put them, and if it happened, it happened. He'd hit him with a good body shot, I think, in the eighth, and I think (referee) Steve (Willis) had seen enough. (Lemieux's) face showed that he didn't want no more."

On Lemieux saying the fight was stopped too soon

"We rely on the referees to protect the fighters. Once he hurt him in several of the rounds, you could see David's face grimace. When a doctor steps up on the apron, they believe there's a problem, and that maybe they ought to step in. For the safety of the fighters, I'd hate to be part of a tragedy, and for all of us to be talking about something different because they let the fight go on too long. Did David have a chance of winning? Absolutely not. Did David have any success doing anything? Absolutely not. So why allow him to continue taking punishment like that? He's a young kid. He's gonna have a great career. This time he just fought a superior fighter."

On a potential fight with the Cotto-Canelo winner

"Our goal and Gennady's goal is not necessarily to fight Cotto or Canelo. Our goal is to unify the belts. The WBC mandated, and we stepped aside for that fight, with the agreement that the next fight, the winner has to fight the winner of this fight. If they don't want to fight us, that's OK, we just fight the next one down and unify the belts. So if they choose not to, who cares?"

On Golovkin taking a boxing approach against Cotto or Canelo

"Absolutely. You saw the jab today, but there's a lot more tools than just the jab. David just allowed him to -- because of Gennady's excellence -- (David) allowed him to hit him with a jab all night, so he didn't have to hit him with anything else. But I think a guy like Canelo or Cotto would force him to use more of his tools."

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