Gennady Golovkin made history last night, making his 21st middleweight world title defence in a performance that saw him roll back the years to destroy a very game Kamil Szeremeta.
At 38 years old, and after a nearly 15-month layoff, there were questions as to how much the former king of the middleweight division had left. GGG answered those questions emphatically, looking every bit the fearsome knockout artist that we remember from a few years ago.
Gennady Golovkin vs Kamil Szeremeta: dominant TKO win for GGG
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GGG proves he is still very much in the mix at the top of the middleweight division, scoring four knockdowns before forcing the stoppage at the end of the seventh round
The previously unbeaten Szeremeta found himself outgunned and outmatched, hitting the canvas a total of four times before the referee called it off between the seventh and eight rounds.
GGG looked sharp and powerful in a nearly punch-perfect performance. His jab was a weapon, his punch variety was spectacular, and he showed the head movement that had been missing in some of his recent outings. Szeremeta was made to miss again and again, and when he missed, he was made to pay.
To Szeremeta's credit, he never stopped trying. Despite taking a beating in every round, and surely knowing there was no way to win, he kept getting up, and kept on throwing punches. At the end of the fifth round, GGG's trainer, Johnathon Banks, told his fighter: "he's ready to go home, he's just waiting on you". However, Szeremeta wasn't quite ready, continuing to battle on through rounds six and seven before the referee decided he had seen enough and waved it off.
Post-fight, when interviewers inevitably steered the conversation towards a GGG-Canelo trilogy match, Golovkin and promoter Eddie Hearn refused to take the bait. However, should Canelo win his fight with Callum Smith tonight, all eyes will certainly be on Canelo-GGG in 2021.