Boxing Challenge: Mbilli defeats Dereyvanchenko

      The boxing Saturday was all about Oh, Canada with a Top Rank/ESPN card from Quebec City and while the headliner earned the victory, he may have looked just vulnerable enough to give other contenders a willingness to face him in the future.

Christian Mbilli's unanimous decision win over Sergey Dereyvanchenko may not have created a new star but the victory certainly helped his rise through the division as the best of his career.

Mbilli attacked in his usual aggressive style and won the first three rounds although Dereyvanchenko scored well at times and when Dereyvanchenko took control with an excellent round four, the fight looked like it was going to be a close fight from there.

Except it wasn't.

Dereyvanchenko damaged his bicep in winning the round and it naturally limited his effectiveness, leading Mbilli to control the remainder of the fight against a game but outmanned opponent.

Mbilli won easily at 100-90, 99-91, and 98-92 (I scored 98-92 for Mbilli), and while he didn't tarnish his image in victory, he didn't dazzle either against an aging opponent who was unable to use one of his hands.

Christian Mbilli is ranked near the top of the super middleweight ratings and unless his team decides to take a safe course, I'd think Mbilli would make sense for the winner of the fall Jaime Munguia-Erik Bazinyan battle.

As for Dereyvanchenko, he's thirty-eight, faces a lengthy rehab for the injured bicep, and has taken more punishment than most fighters after a twenty-one-fight career, so it might be time for him to step away from the sport.

The co-feature saw Guido Vinaello stop Arislanbek Mahkmudov when the doctor stopped the fight at the start of the eighth round due to incredible swelling around the left eye of Mahkmudov.

Vinello won every round on my card, battering the lumbering Makhmundov throughout the bout and hurting him on several occasions.

Give Makhmudov credit for hanging around as long as he did on courage alone but he's dreadfully slow and unless you match him against a non-mover, he's going to have big problems.

Cuban super middleweight Osley Iglesias continued his maturation with a second-round knockout over Sena Agbeko.

Agbeko was recently stopped by David Morrell in two rounds but Morrell (or anyone in Agbeko's career) failed to knock him down.

That ended against Iglesias, who knocked Agbeko down late in the first round and finished him early in the second.

Iglesias is developing into a potential future star at 168 pounds.

Boxing Challenge

Ramon Malpica: 115 Pts (3)

TRS: 106 Pts (6)

Vince Samano: 58 Pts (3)

Boxing Challenge: Munguia battles Derevyvanchenko

  The biggest fight of the weekend normally receives top billing and while Teofimo Lopez's upset win over Josh Taylor will be more telling in the future of boxing, the fight between Jaime Munguia and Sergey Derevyvanchenko was also important and the battle waged will be remembered for a long time, so it deserves a post of its own.

I will write another about the Lopez-Taylor fight as well as the title defense for IBF flyweight champion Sunny Edwards shortly.

The twelve-rounder from Golden Boy/DAZN from Ontario, California saw Dereyvanchenko push the pace and avoid his usual slow start but Munguia answer back with strong punches of his own in the early rounds with both fighters rocked at times without falling to the mat.

Dereyvanchenko was obviously the smaller fighter but was able to avoid the wider shots of Munguia to do valuable work on the bigger man and was able to jab his way inside Munguia to his credit.

Munguia had his moments in the first half of the fight and the fifth round will be in consideration for the round of the year when the awards are decided as both fighters landed right hands at will with Dereyvanchenko gaining a small edge.

The second half started slowly but began to pick up in the eighth round with Derevyvanchenko having Munguia in mild trouble in both the eighth and ninth.

The DAZN commentators throughout the fight referred to an offer made to Dereyvanchenko to reduce the fight from twelve to ten rounds for a reported six-figure sum that was turned down as Dereyvanchenko figured to have the advantage in the late rounds and didn't want to give that away.

Had that offer been accepted, Derevyanchenko would have been the winner by majority decision.

Munguia won the eleventh and landed a thumping body punch that sent Dereyvanachenko to one knee in the final round and seemed to be on his way to a stunning final-round knockout.

Dereyvanchenko managed to move away, pulled Munguia to the canvas along with himself, and by the end of the round had recovered enough to fend Munguia off with an occasional right hand.

In the end, it was another heartbreaking defeat for Dereyvanchenko as Munguia won a narrow unanimous decision with scores of 115-112 and 114-113 times two for the victor.

Had Dereyvanchenko not been knocked down in the last round, the fight would have ended in a majority draw.

I had Dereyvanchenko the winner at 114-113 but this was not a robbery just a close fight with reasonable scores.

While I feel bad for Dereyvanchenko for another achingly close defeat, the facts are that it has been his chin that let him down yet again in these close losses as he was dropped in losses to Daniel Jacobs and Gennady Golovkin.

The win is the best of Munguia's career and he announced a permanent move to the super middleweight division after the fight.
However, Munguia was punished by a smaller fighter and one not known for a tremendous amount of power, so it's fair to speculate how he will hold up in a division with Canelo Alvarez, David Benavidez, and David Morrell at its top.

Still, Munguia finished strong, pulled out a fight that he was losing, showed an incredible amount of heart in winning the bout, and he deserves a lot of credit for his effort, even if you thought Derevyvanchenko was the winner.

In the co-feature, veteran middleweight Shane Mosley Jr scored the biggest win of his career with a seventh-round stoppage of D'Mitrius Ballard in what was thought of before the fight as a possible showcase for a fight against Jaime Munguia in the future.

I'm not sure if that happens now that Munguia will stay in the 168-pound division but Mosley dominated the once-beaten Ballard, who had suffered his only loss in his previous fight against Munguia in three rounds last year, and could face an opponent in his next fight that would give Mosley a chance to improve himself in a weak middleweight division.

Ballard won the first two rounds on my card but Mosley began to grind Ballard down and scored a knockdown in the fifth round that Ballard never recovered from as Mosley finished Ballard in the seventh as the referee jumped in with Ballard taking punches along the ropes.

Ballard appears headed for journeyman status or will at least need to be rebuilt with a few lower-level opponents before he would face a top-twenty opponent.

The problem for Mosley, who is ranked 10th in the WBA and 13th by the WBC, is that Golden Boy Promotions really doesn't have an opponent that would help him rise higher in the ratings.

Mosley would have likely been a sizable underdog against Jaime Munguia but that would have given him a chance to face a name opponent and without Munguia in the division or a sanctioning body ordering an eliminator (unlikely for now), Mosley may be in a gray area without anyone to fight.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 93 Pts (3)

Ramon Malpica: 85 Pts (2)

Vince Samano: 69 Pts (0)  

Boxing Challenge: Charlo Brothers win in PPV Debut

  The debut of the Charlo brothers in their first appearance on pay per view went as well as the brothers, PBC, and Showtime could have expected as both brothers grabbed victories in fights that were generally good bouts.

Jermell Charlo won his title unification fight at junior middleweight as he took away Jeison Rosario's WBA and IBF titles to add to the WBC championship that he held entering the fight by an eighth-round knockout.

Charlo knocked Rosario down in the first round with a shot to the top of the head, but Rosario survived and worked his way back into the fight.

Charlo was losing round six before hitting Rosario with a left hook that sent Rosario to the canvas and Rosario would barely survive the round.

Charlo would end the fight in the eighth with a jab to the stomach that took all the air from Rosario and ended the match.

I haven't seen a knockout from a jab to the stomach since Little Mac knocked out King Hippo on Mike Tyson's Punch Out, so that is quite an achievement for Charlo.

Jeison Rosario joins the depth chart at PBC at junior middleweight of fighters that can beat some, lose to others and will likely still in the mix among their contenders.

For Jermell Charlo. if he is the king of the hill for now and deservedly so, I'm not sure that he is head and shoulders above the rest for the long term.

Charlo struggled twice with Tony Harrison and there could be one of the guys on the depth chart that could match well with Charlo (Jarrett Hurd perhaps) and upset him, but he'd be favored over any of them until proven otherwise.

Three championships come with three mandatories and they range from interesting (Talented, but inexperienced Israil Madrimov WBA),  mundane (Bakhram Murtazaliev IBF), and been there done that (Erickson Lubin WBC, who Charlo knocked out in one round in 2017), so I really don't know where Charlo goes next, but I'm doubting it will be anyone to really excite fans because there just isn't anyone in the junior middleweight division to do so.

Earlier in the evening, Jermall Charlo defended his WBC middleweight title via unanimous decision over Sergey Dereyvanchenko for the biggest win of Charlo's career.

The fight played out in the manner that most expected to- Charlo scoring well from long distance, getting out to a fast start, banking early rounds, and holding off the Dereyvanchenko rally.

Charlo wobbled Dereyvanchenko in the third round and Dereyvanchenko stung Charlo in the seventh, but neither fighter was ever in huge trouble during the fight or knocked out.

Dereyvanchenko did take heavy damage around his eyes with bruising around both, but he continued to press the action and make Charlo work throughout the fight.

I scored Charlo a comfortable, but not dominant 116-112 winner, which agreed with one of the three scorecards.

I'm not sure where Charlo is headed now.

As strong as PBC is at 147 and 154, they are that weak at 160 as Dereyvanchenko was the best fight that PBC had for Charlo and Dereyvanchenko was ranked first by the WBC.

The next eventual mandatory would be Jaime Munguia (currently ranked second) and the talented but still raw Munguia isn't quite of Charlo's caliber yet, along with the promotional problems of PBC dealing with Golden Boy as Munguia's promoter.

Charlo says he'll fight anyone, but if seven million dollars wasn't enough for a unification fight with WBO champion Demetrius Andrade to fight outside of the PBC, I have my doubts that he's moving outside the PBC cocoon anytime soon.

As for Dereyvanchenko, he now has three close title fight losses and I'm not sure that he gets another title shot anytime soon and with his association with PBC, who does he fight to move back up the ladder?

A very difficult spot to be in for the veteran.

John Riel Casimero knocked out Duke Micah in the third round to keep his WBO bantamweight championship to open the evening.

Casimero knocked Micah down in the second and delivered a fearsome beating for the remainder of the round before finishing Micah off in the first minute of the third round.

Casimero had a scheduled unification match with WBA and IBF champion Naoya Inoue canceled due to Covid-19 and I'm not sure if his contract with PBC was a one-off contract or if it could be longer in term.

A Inoue-Casimero fight would likely be explosive, exciting, and short, but I hope that pairing can be revived and made in 2021.

The other three fights on the card, I have not watched yet, so when I do I will return and edit with my scorecards.

Luis Nery won a unanimous decision over Aaron Alameda to win the vacant WBC junior featherweight title.

Daniel Roman won a unanimous decision over Juan Carlos Payano.

Brandon Figueroa stopped Damien Vasquez in the tenth round.

In the boxing challenge I outscored Ramon Malpica eleven to eight on the PPV.

I moved my overall lead to 128-117.

Boxing Challenge: Golovkin slips by Dereyvanchenko

Photo: Scott Levy MSG Photos

Boxing saw another great fight Saturday and while you can quibble over who won a fight that could have gone either way- one thing is clear- the once-feared machine that was Gennady Golovkin is no more as Golovkin won a close unanimous decision over Sergey Dereyvanchenko to win the vacant IBF middleweight crown at New York's Madison Square Garden.

Golovkin seemed to be detached from the fight even as he prepared in his dressing room and during the fight, DAZN was reporting that Golovkin had been ill and may not have been at peak form.
An illness may have been involved, but don't allow it to take away from the tremendous effort from Dereyvanchenko, who lost his second close decision for the vacant IBF title, having lost a split decision to Daniel Jacobs for the title after it had been stripped from Golovkin.

The evening started strong for Golovkin with the first-round knockdown and in then the second round, a left hand ripped a bad cut over the right eye of Dereyvanchenko in a cut that could have stopped the fight, had the corner of Dereyvanchenko not been able to patch their fighter together enough to continue.
The ridiculous part was the decision by referee Harvey Dock to rule that the cut was caused by a headbutt when replays clearly showed that there was no headbutt at all.
New York does not use replays for such decisions and had the fight needed to be stopped, the fight would have been decided on the scorecards rather than Golovkin ruled the rightful victor.
Thankfully, that didn't happen and fans were rewarded with an excellent battle that saw Dereyvanchenko landed more punches than GGG over the course of the fight, was able to keep Golovkin a step behind and in what was a key in the fight- used his jab to not only stop Golovkin from using his jab, but back Golovkin up, which rarely has happened in his career.
I had Dereyvanchenko ahead after ten rounds, but in two action rounds, I thought Golovkin won the final two rounds to win by one point.

Dereyvanchenko's loss to Golovkin was eerily similar to his loss to Daniel Jacobs- both fights were 114-113 on my card for the eventual winner, in both fights Dereyvanchenko suffered flash knockdowns in the first round, which would cost him a draw (on my card) and in both fights, Dereyvanchenko hurt his opponent badly (against Golovkin, it was the fifth round, against Jacobs it was the second round), but could not score a knockdown to even the lost point from his knockdown.
Still, the difference was that Dereyvanchenko was doing this against the great Gennady Golovkin, not just the very good Daniel Jacobs.

In the end, a rematch would seem to be in order after Golovkin seemed to have the edge by being the 'name fighter' after being on the other side of that coin against Canelo Alvarez, but in more irony, Golovkin may decide to avoid a rematch to move to bigger fights.
In boxing, the aggrieved party one day can often be a businessman the next and bigger paydays could
come elsewhere for Golovkin, who was reported to have decided to quickly come back early next year to dispose of his IBF mandatory defense, which could be Dereyvanchenko, but is more likely to be the top available contender, which by their most recent rankings would be Kamil Szeremeta of Poland, who won a squash match on the undercard.
Even if Golovkin was inclined to consider a rematch, Dereyvanchenko's camp is associated with the PBC and with the raised stature of Dereyvanchenko after such a high profile battle, PBC could decide to match him with their only top middleweight in opponent-starved WBC champion Jermall Charlo.

No matter who you agree or disagree with on who won, I think it was pretty clear that it was a one-point fight (Two of the cards had Golovkin winning 115-112, which I thought was too wide) either way.
Either you liked the heavier shots of Golovkin, had the rounds 6-6 and the knockdown swung it Golovkin's way or you thought the Dereyvanchenko work rate was more effective with Dereyvanchenko winning seven of the twelve rounds, losing a point for the first-round knockdown and winning by the same one point.
Either score would be very reasonable and since the fight was that close, it could hardly be a robbery as a few are claiming.

Unless you buy the illness excuse, Gennady Golovkin was not the same fighter at 37 years of age as in the past and from his body language, he didn't seem to be a fighter burning with love for the game at any time before and during the bout.
It's possible that the greatness of Golovkin may have been left in those rings in Las Vegas against Canelo and he may have left his passion there as well with his fire extinguished not by Canelo Alvarez in the ring, but by the pair of Canelo Alvarez and Oscar De La Hoya outside the ring, where they avoided him at his peak, waited until he looked to be a bit vulnerable (after Daniel Jacobs lasted twelve rounds), insisted the fight be held in Las Vegas where Canelo had benefited from a very arguable decision against Erislandy Lara and used the often-awful judge Adalaide Byrd with one of the worst big fight scorecards ever to deprive GGG of the first fight, which he clearly won and then made him wait a year for a rematch.
When you deal with all those issues- all of which are sadly par for the course in boxing, it's easy to lose interest, especially when despite those problems, you have still been very well compensated and you don't need to fight, should you prefer not to.

The best way for Gennady Golovkin to leaving boxing might have been on that September night in 2018, where he could have emulated Marvin Hagler and walked away thinking you got me, but you will get me no more.
Keep your rematch money and your stipulations, leave close to your prime with many thinking you won both fights and almost everyone not associated with Golden Boy or a Canelo fanboy believing you easily won the first and go home.
That's how I would have liked to have seen it end for GGG, but in boxing, those endings seldom wind up occurring and unless Golovkin was ill last night, I don't see this ending well.
Canelo Alvarez could decide to fight a slowed Golovkin now to establish superiority once and for all or it could be another contender that finishes what Dereyvanchenko started, but the fighter that will enter Canastota on the first ballot wasn't fighting in Madison Square Garden last night and seems unlikely to return.

The undercard was filled with uncompetitive blowouts that aren't even really worth mentioning with former IBF junior welterweight champion Ivan Baranchyk stopping Gabriel Bracero in four, super middleweight Ali Akhmedov blasted out uncompetitive Andrew Hernandez in the first round, and junior middleweight Israil Madrimov knocked out Alejandro Barrera in five.
All results were pretty much expected and didn't accomplish much other than showcasing talents for future fights.

In the boxing challenge, I outscored Ramon Malpica eight to six in points.
I added my points from wins from Madirmov (Three with bonus round point), Akhmedov and Baranchyk (Two each ) and Golovkin (One).
Ramon earned points from Golovkin and Madrimov (Two each) and Akhmedov and Baranchyk (One each).
The season points stand at 239-208.

IBF strips Canelo Alvarez

Boxing continues to shoot itself in the foot as the IBF stripped Canelo Alvarez of their middleweight title for a failure to sign a contract to face their number one contender in Sergey Dereyvanchenko.

Alvarez has now moved from having three of the four major titles this summer (WBA, WBC, and IBF) to holding only one of their legitimate  championships (WBA), since the ridiculous Oscar De La Hoya stamp of approval for the WBC to give Alvarez their even more ridiculous "Franchise" title that does not have any mandatory contenders and cannot be lost, even if Alvarez loses in the ring.
There will be lots of blame to pass around and I'll be doing so shortly, but the biggest worry of all is when you read between the lines of Oscar De La Hoya's whining press release, where De La Hoya vaguely threatens to have his fighters refuse to fight for any of the IBF championships.
If you combine De La Hoya/Golden Boy's possible refusal to fight for IBF title, the PBC seemingly on their way to refusing to recognize the WBO ( It took me many years to reluctantly do that), the road to making big fights between rival promoters could be hitting a major roadblock shortly.
Think about it this way, what is the main carrot that makes big fights?
It's not money, top fighters get that with in-house title defenses and are often willing to wait for big dollars which often come with larger risk.
It's often not public demand either, as the wait for Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao showed with both fighters not facing off in their prime,
It is often championships-one fighter against the other for who is truly the best (the dollars for such a fight doesn't hurt either) and we are entering a space that may begin to erode even that as an incentive.
When promoters can begin to brush off a fighter by not recognizing the title he holds, the argument for needing to decide the "true world champion" can be brushed aside easily.
"Why should I fight him to decide, I hold the "real" title, he doesn't hold one that I deem important", therefore rendering the need to unify and the excuse to avoid an anticipated fight is easy to find.

I'm not always a fan of sanctioning bodies, more often than not, they sway between ignorant and corrupt with a large dose of ridiculous tossed in for taste, but fighters need to fight for something.
If there were no titles, no trophies in team sports, what would they play for and more importantly why would they or we care about their games?
Anyone can watch a local pickup game anywhere, so why play if nothing is on the line?
A fight is just a fight after all, why pay to watch someone fight someone else without anything on the line?

Could there be a better sanctioning body?
The WBA has too many title belts, the WBC creates special titles with special privileges for fighters they like, the WBO rates Top Rank fighters far earlier and higher than they should and the IBF ratings are often bad as they attempt to be fair worldwide, they overrate fighters unproven against world-class opponents.
However, for now, we have little choice other than to try to encourage them to correct these errors as any new body would just be another belt unless all the promoters agreed to make them that title the elite championship and make sure they support it- And that just isn't happening.
For all the issues with the alphabet boys, the IBF is the one that is the fairest.
They at least follow their rules, which is more than I can say for the others, and for all their problems with ratings and often weak mandatory contenders, they have a program plotted out on how things are done and for the problems that come with that, they follow their standards.

And that leads us back to Mr. Alvarez and his promoter Mr.De La Hoya.
Mr.Alvarez, who in the eyes of the majority of boxing followers is at best 0-1-1 vs Gennady Golovkin and many (myself included) have him losing both fights, has decided to rest on his dubious win/draw and avoid a Golovkin rematch, which is not only the biggest fight that Alvarez can find, it's the main reason that DAZN doled out so many dollars to sign him to the largest contract in sports.

Team Canelo dodged Golovkin, to begin with by fighting the likes of Amir Khan, Liam Smith, and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, all while "encouraging" Golovkin to fight less so an injury wouldn't delay a potential fight.
While that was on Golovkin, what wasn't was after a draw that almost everyone thought he lost, was the "tainted beef" excuse for Alvarez's failing a PED test and then after winning a controversial decision in the second fight (The second fight was far closer than the first to be fair), to strut around as "champion" and attempt to make Golovkin jump through hoops such as "win a belt" to order to "give the people the fights they want", which is a De La Hoya fallback mantra used often.
The Alvarez management wanted so badly to avoid Golovkin they even gave up their treasured September date for 2019 because they couldn't find anyone that DAZN would approve of other than Golovkin or WBO champion Demetrius Andrade, who is tremendously talented, if not exciting and would be a real threat to decision either Alvarez or Golovkin.
Don't forget the speed that GBP/Canelo accepted the WBC's ridiculous "franchise" title, even if it cost him their real title with as that title won't force Alvarez to fight anyone including their then-minor champion Jermall Charlo.
All of this to fight who they wish without responsibility for quality opponents.

I'm not going to hammer Alvarez too much for his battle with the IBF over not fighting Sergey Dereyvanchenko, who is a top ten contender, but since his close split decision loss to Daniel Jacobs for the same IBF title stripped from Gennady Golovkin, has fought only one time, a unanimous decision over Jack Culcay and likely shouldn't be the mandatory challenger for Alvarez, although he is a far better fighter than De La Hoya claimed in his whiny statement.
Canelo's team did try to fight Dereyvanchenko, mainly because it would have been yet another reason to sidestep GGG, even taking less money from DAZN to have them sign off on this fight if it didn't have the clause that they must face Golovkin next and Derevyvanchenko promoter Lou DiBella with "advisor" Al Haymon did pull this same stunt with Golovkin, which is negotiating but delay a deal in order to hope the bigger draw isn't satisfied and vacates/strips the title, which their fighter then fights for.
The IBF could have seen that Alvarez was negotiating in good faith and given them a small time extension to attempt to get the fight signed and that was a mistake on their part, especially when you consider the history of DiBella/Haymon in similar situations, but it's tough to feel too sorry for Canelo/GBP considering their history of machinations.

So, where do we stand?
Dereyvanchenko will get his second chance to fight for the vacant IBF title, but he likely won't like the opponent in the second-ranked Golovkin in what should be a strong action fight and one that might make Golovkin look very good.
Golovkin with a win can pick up a title, which would take away another excuse from GBP for avoiding a third fight.
The IBF looks like an organization that might be too rigid for its own good, although I'll take that over the other three, who apply their rules on an "as needed" basis depending on the situation and who is involved.
Canelo Alvarez tried to do the right thing in fighting his mandatory, but after dodging Golovkin with more stipulations and ducks than in an episode of Duck Tales, it's tough to feel too sorry for him and who knows when he fights again and against who.
DAZN wants quality fights and I'm willing to bet that there are some questions inside the Canelo camp on whether they should have accepted going into business with an entity that wants to tell them who to fight and may have checkmated Oscar De La Hoya and his plans to keep Canelo active, but yet avoid the person that might have his number- no matter the scorecards of a few judges.

And for boxing, yet another loss for a sport that takes a step back with each step forward.

Golovkin stripped of IBF title

A stunning decision was ruled today by one of boxing's sanctioning bodies as the IBF took away its middleweight championship from Gennady Golovkin.

While this all circles around to Canelo Alvarez's PED or "tainted beef" suspension (depending on whom you believe), I still think that even though the IBF made a mistake in stripping Golovkin, Team GGG made the bigger errors.
GGG promoter Tom Loeffler didn't pursue a May fight vs IBF mandatory challenger Sergey Dereyvanchenko after the questionable decision to force a Cinco De Mayo bout for Golovkin, even if it meant a soft touch in inactive career junior middleweight Vanes Martirosyan, who Golovkin easily trashed in two rounds.
Fighting Derevyanchenko then would have lifted a mandatory obligation, would have been a likely win (although a tougher fight) and they would have continued with all three titles to move onto the next hurdle.
Loeffler did pay the IBF $20,000 to not strip Golovkin for fighting Martirosyan but did not agree to the IBF's stipulation that Golovkin faces Dereyvanchenko next.
That's understandable considering the possibility of a Canelo rematch, but with Golovkin's recent demand for purse parity (another mistake in my opinion), that bout seems to have fallen through and now with one of the four belts being vacant, a prospective bout against WBO champion Billy Joe Saunders seems a bit anticlimactic.

The IBF seems a bit haughty here and will lose some dollars for their ham-handed handling of the matter as either a Derevyanchenko or his opponent for the vacant title as champion. will mean a far lighter sanctioning fee than Golovkin's defenses, so they'll take a hit as well.
They also look bad as Derevyanchenko's representatives didn't ask to have Golvokin stripped-they asked to force Golovkin's next fight against their fighter and only strip if that fight didn't happen.
The IBF could save some face here with a ruling that the title is vacant, but Golovkin could fight for the title against Dereyvanchenko, should he agree by a reasonable date, say 30 days.
I still have my doubts that happens considering the body would likely dictate the terms for the fighters purses, but it still would be a good P.R. move.

This does give Golovkin options for his next fight without a standout contender for the bout as now it seems that we are back to the beginning of few (except Dereyvanchenko) really wanting to face GGG, but what about the IBF's prospects?
Their rules state that they will offer the fight to each contender below Dereyvanchenko in order until someone accepts the fight.
The possibilities start strong but quickly roll downhill with Daniel Jacobs getting the first crack.
Jacobs has been offered the B-side for the Canelo Alvarez return, so that would trump the IBF unless Oscar De La Hoya is simply strongarming Golovkin with Jacobs as a backup plan.
Editor's Note: Both Dereyvanchenko and Jacobs are both trained by Andre Rozier making a bout between them even more unlikely.
Jermall Charlo is Golovkin's number one contender in the WBC, but I can see Charlo trying to grab a belt and try to build his name for a future big fight, so that could happen.
Demetrius Andrade would be next and he's a talented guy but isn't always exciting and I can't see many being thrilled about that one, although I'd find it interesting.
If all those pass-look out as the rest of the top ten are Euro's Tommy Langford (untested) and Martin Murray (0 for 4 in title bouts), unknowns Rafael Berajan and Kamil Szeremeta and recent loser to Daniel Jacobs in Luis Arias.
Considering that Billy Joe Saunders' title claim was often ridiculed, I cannot imagine the winner of Derevyanchenko against anyone south of Andrade getting anything more than an "also holds a belt"
mention by boxing media.

In the end, everyone here loses- Golovkin loses a title and becomes less likely to gain his long announced goal of all four titles. Derevyanchenko loses a larger payday, although he's more likely to win a title now, the IBF loses as now they will likely have the least recognized champion and the followers of boxing lose as well because it will take a while for this mess to clear itself up.
Only in boxing...

Back later with the Cavaliers loss to the Golden State Warriors in game three...