Spike O’Sullivan OUT of the running for Gennady Golovkin World Title fight
With reports circulating that Gennady Golovkin’s May 5th fight date looking “increasingly likely” to be postponed, potential opponent Spike O’Sullivan has pulled out of the running.
The Kazakh has been searching for an opponent to replace Canelo Alvarez on Cinco De Mayo and has already seen two proposed foes – Jaime Munguia and Vanes Martirosyan – vetoes by the Nevada Athletic Commission and boxing governing bodies respectively.
Cork 33-year-old O’Sullivan was seen as the front-runner to replace Golden Boy stablemate Alvarez following the Mexican superstar’s withdrawal due to two positive tests for Clenbuterol.
However, this evening the Mahon man has been confirmed to be out of the reckoning.
There are conflicting reasons as to why this is the case.
O’Sullivan’s manager and trainer Paschal Collins has stated that the withdrawal has been due to the uncertainty surrounding the contest.
so many rumours circulating about who fights @GGGBoxing next or whether the fight was even happening because of all the uncertainty we have made the decision to Withdraw @spike_osullivan as a possible opponent ! He will instead fight May 4th on @espn in LA🇺🇸@GoldenBoyBoxing pic.twitter.com/qNFmB2Iel3
— Packie Collins (@packycollins) April 11, 2018
However, Eric Gomez – the President of Golden Boy Promotions, with whom O’Sullivan is one fight into a four-fight tv deal – claims that the Leesider has been pulled due to the low financial reward offered by the match-up as well as the short amount of time until fight night.
“Spike’s not going to take the fight. He really wanted to do the fight, but the short amount of time, the short amount of money, it just doesn’t work at this time,” Gomez told Dan Rafael of ESPN.
While his dream title shot is no longer on the immediate horizon, O’Sullivan will still headline a Golden Boy on ESPN on Friday May 4th. The Celtic Warriors man had been initially preparing for this fight before the pull-out of Canelo from the Golovkin match-up.
This May 4th date was initially pencilled in Las Vegas to dovetail with Golovkin-Canelo but O’Sullivan’s promoter Murphys Boxing have stated that a bill at the StubHub Centre in Los Angeles is now in the works.
This fight was believed to be building towards a fight between O’Sullivan and Canelo in September on Mexican Independence Weekend. Indeed, with Canelo expected to get a six-month ban backdated to mid-February, this could still be the case.
An opponent for O’Sullivan will be confirmed in due course.
