Trainer Abel Sanchez chats it up with our colleague Marcos Villegas to discuss Golovkin's training heading into the Sept. 10th fight with Kell Brook and how he expects the bout to play out. Check out some excerpts from the video below.
Sanchez on how he's preparing Golovkin to face Brook:
"Normally the training camps are all the same. The only difference this time would be that I got guys that were a little shorter, a little faster, try to mimic what Kell is going to do. But I always try to train my guys to be 100% themselves and whomever we put in front of them will be just a bump in the road..."
On how Golovkin has fared against smaller and quicker sparring partners:
"Real good, he loves to train. He loves to train, doesn't matter if it's big guys, small guys, he just likes to train. And when you get a guy like that it's easy to adapt the training to what we have in front of us, which is Kell, but he's been great."
On how he expects Brook to approach the fight in the ring:
"By him weighing 176 I think they're trying to bulk up, trying to be strong, and I think he may want to stick around and fight Gennady. He may not move as much because he'll be a lot heavier. At least that's what that indicates to me. I may be totally wrong but I know the Ingles are a great team - they're probably the best trainers in England. So I know they'll have him prepared, I know they'll have a gameplan...that just tells me they could want to go, not so much toe-to-toe, but just not as much movement as they've done in the past."
On if that approach would be a bad thing against a big puncher like Golovkin:
"You know there's all kinds of ways to do this thing and they have 36 wins under their belt so they are obviously doing something right. Yeah, if you ask me and I had Kell, yeah, that would be completely the wrong way but I'm not training Kell, I'm training Golovkin."
On how a large English crowd could influence the scoring of the fight:
"It won't affect us, if it affects somebody it will be the judges because 20,000 people screaming Kell's name if he does something could influence them. But I don't think it goes to a decision. Their both finishers, obviously by their knockout records. I don't know if Kell can hurt Golovkin but I know Golovkin will be able to hurt him. So it's just a matter of who is able to land the first significant punch - we'll see how it goes from there."
On how long he expects the fight to last:
"If the weight is any indication and he sticks around I think it's a 5-6 round fight...anybody who stands in front of Golovkin is getting knocked out. Anybody who stands within distance of Golovkin is getting knocked out. Anybody who doesn't move in front of Golovkin is getting knocked out. And if they can't hurt Gennady, they're in trouble."
On how Golovkin is handling the criticism of fighting a smaller opponent:
"He doesn't care, he wants to get in the ring. He understands that nobody wants to fight him, and if you've saw the last press conference you see a little frustration in him - guys talking and talking and talking and not wanting to sign. But it's another fight, we're two weeks away, it's not even in his mind - the criticism...
On if the criticism bothers him:
"No because I know exactly what's going on. And you guys know exactly what's going on. How many guys out there talking and nobody signing."
On if he believes Gennady has hit his peak as a fighter:
"You know I don't think he's hit anybody 100%, first of all. And second, I think that in time we're going to get those fighters that everybody deems worthy of challenging him. And when that happens I think that we will see the layers that we haven't seen yet...I think he's about 70-80% right now of what we see in the gym from what we see in the fights because he doesn't have to use it. In fact you can talk to his sparring partners...He's such a talented fighter that he doesn't have to use all of those things. But the supposed elite fighters that are out there, if they would only sign then maybe we would see those kind of fights that we as fans want to see."