Gennady "GGG" Golovkin moved forward with plans to give Cinco de Mayo fight fans a show, despite Canelo Alvarez's suspension, and as was to be expected he made easy work out of fill-in opponent Vanes Martirosyan.
With his second-round knockout, the Kazakhstani champ secured his 38th victory and tied Bernard Hopkins' record of 20 consecutive title defenses in the 160-pound division. Golovkin didn't earn very many credibility points by taking on a short-notice fighter who hadn't been in the ring for two years, but he certainly didn't lose the love of supporters considering he agreed to take a pay cut that dropped his winnings from eight figures to a square million dollars.
Martirosyan made $225,000 for his troubles, and he likely regretted it in the morning. He did reasonably well in introducing his jab throughout the opening round, but GGG nonetheless stunned him once or twice while working to pick up a rhythm. Entering round-two, it sounded as though all 7,837 on hand at the StubHub Center were already thirsty for the K.O., chanting "Triple G!" continuously, until the unified WBA (Super), WBC, IBF, and IBO belt holder put Martirosyan down with 1 minute, 53 seconds on the clock.
“It was like being hit by a train,” Martirosyan would tell reporters after the fight. “It wasn’t just one punch. It was all of his punches. It’s the hardest I’ve ever been hit.”
