Reigning WBA and IBO middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin appears to be moving on from the name-calling and thrash talking with super middleweight champ Andre Ward as he had chosen to fight current IBF middleweight titlist David Lemieux for a unification bout at the Madison Square Garden in New York on October 17.

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ESPN's Dan Rafael reported that the match is official and would put on the line the belts of the two greatest middleweight fighters right now.

Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs), who is also a known heavy-hitter and has a "crowd-pleasing" style like that of GGG, is expected to give Golovkin (33-0, 33 KOs) one of his toughest tests to date.

"Gennady will not underestimate Lemieux. He is the biggest puncher he will have ever faced, and Gennady will be the biggest puncher Lemieux will have ever faced," GGG's promoter Tom Loeffler said.

Loeffler said that the match will be between the two best middleweights in the world today, previously adding that their camp and that of Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions both had gone through great lengths to make this unification fight happen.

Boxing News 24's Dan Ambrose affirmed Rafael and Loeffler's declarations that the bout will be pitting "two huge 160-pound punchers against each other" and that it is set "to be action-packed from start to finish."

This fight is anticipated to be a breakthrough one for Golovkin, who could prove that he is ready to face elite-level boxers if he will be able to beat Lemieux handily.

Super middleweight king Andre Ward is reportedly calling out GGG for a fight this fall, but Golovkin and his promoters wisely chose the Lemieux fight first as they had long desired to unify all the belts in the division.

Ward, meanwhile, can fight light heavyweight champ Sergey Kovalev this last quarter of the year if he wants to as the latter's camp was also calling him out.

Then early next year, after all the dust settles and both fighters win their respective bouts, the Ward-Golovkin battle should be next on the table. Although it should be noted that beating Lemieux and Kovalev is definitely easier said than done.

SkySports mentioned the possibility of Golovkin moving down to 154 to face undefeated American Floyd Mayweather Jr., but as it turned out, Mayweather's camp was not even considering a fight with the Kazakh to be a viable PPV draw.  

TagsBoxing, Boxing 2015, Boxing News, Boxing News 2015, gennady golovkin, David Lemieux, andre ward, Sergey Kovalev, Floyd Mayweather Jr