Gennady Golovkin won't be Sergio Martinez's next fight, says DiBella

Last night in Connecticut, Lou DiBella watched as Gennady Golovkin demolished one of his fighters, tough middleweight contender Matthew Macklin, in just three rounds, scoring a vicious body shot knockout.

With DiBella's top fighter Sergio Martinez still the legitimate champion of the division, the question now, of course, is if or when we might see Martinez-Golovkin. Don't hold your breath, as DiBella says plainly that Golovkin is too dangerous for Martinez whenever the champ does return, which isn't expected until spring 2014.

"Sergio will be out for at least a year. You saw his last fight, he won it on guts and will and balls alone. He had no knee, he had no hand, and I'm not sending a champion who is 38-years-old - after a year plus layoff - into a ring with this guy. I'm not saying they will never fight. I'm not speaking for Sergio, who is a grown as man and controls his own career. The successor to Sergio Martiknez has already been determined and the next great middleweight is Triple G."

Martinez (51-2-2, 28 KO) barely survived a stern challenge from Martin Murray in April, put on the canvas once officially, and clearly struggling with his aging body, which appears to be betraying him. Martinez has suffered pretty notable injuries in both of his last two fights, and at 38, the general feeling is we've seen his best days come and go.

Golovkin (27-0, 24 KO) is currently fighting like such a beast that DiBella is probably wise to distance Sergio from him at the moment. It's a fight that may never happen, simply due to timing. Martinez may only have a fight or two left, and if he retired for medical reasons right now, would anyone really blame him? You could say that would constitute a "duck," I suppose, but do you really need to see the nasty proof of Golovkin splaying Martinez across the canvas if Sergio's body is as beaten up as it appeared to be against Murray?

If Sergio gets healthy and feels good about the fight, sure, I'd love to see it. But that's a pretty sizable "if," too. Martinez isn't getting younger, and if the fight never happens for reasons like health concerns, then I can't say I'd feel too robbed of the fight. It's possible that this is a "what could have been?" fight that we didn't fully realize had so much great potential a year or two ago. Whatever happens, we're never going to see Golovkin fight the best Sergio.