INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) – Less than six minutes after the opening bell, Gennady Golovkin left another contender for his middleweight belts crumpled on the canvas.
Golovkin appears determined to keep on brutalizing overmatched opponents and racking up knockouts until no 160-pound fighters remain upright.
Golovkin defended his middleweight titles in devastating fashion again Saturday night, finishing Wade in the second round for his 22nd straight stoppage victory.
Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) knocked down Wade three times in the short fight, punishing the previously undefeated challenger before ending the bout on a right to the chin with 23 seconds left in the second. A sold-out Forum roared for its adopted champion in his 16th consecutive title defense.
“This is a big present for my fans,” Golovkin said. “I’m here now and I’m here to stay. I’m not going anywhere.”
Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez also defended his WBC 112-pound title with a unanimous decision over McWilliams Arroyo.
Golovkin and Gonzalez combined to pack the famous arena south of downtown Los Angeles for the second time in a year, attracting 16,353 savvy boxing fans who understand the sublime brutality of the Kazakh 160-pound champion and the Nicaraguan flyweight.
AlthoughGolovkin has dominated the middleweight division, he still covets a superfight with Canelo Alvarez, who holds the WBC version of the 160-pound belt after beating Miguel Cotto at a 155-pound catch weight last year.
Alvarez has said he is willing to fight Golovkin, but Alvarez’s promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, appears less interested in making it happen right away. Alvarez will be forced to vacate the WBC belt if he doesn’t take the fight later this year, giving three of the four major titles to Golovkin.
When asked if he had a message for Alvarez, Golovkin said: “Give me my belt! Hey, I need my belt! I’m ready!”
Gonzalez (45-0) is widely considered the world’s top pound-for-pound fighter since the retirement of Floyd Mayweather, and the 112-pound dynamo put on another impressive display in his fourth straight title defense.
Yet the Nicaraguan champion’s streak of 10 consecutive stoppage victories was ended by Arroyo (16-3), whose gritty effort on a damaged shoe earned him respect from a crowd supporting Gonzalez.
Nobody had gone the distance with Gonzalez since Juan Francisco Estrada in November 2012. Two judges scored the bout 119-109 for Gonzalez, and a third gave every round to the champion, 120-108.