Gennadiy Golovkin has warned that he may “legally kill a person in the ring” if he were ever to fight Oscar De La Hoya.
The 47-year-old De La Hoya retired in 2008 but has announced plans to return to the ring, and suggested that he would have little trouble were he to fight the Kazakh.
“Do you know how easy he would be for me? Oh, my gosh,” he said.
“I always took a good shot and I always took apart fighters like him. In my mind it would be that easy.”
Golovkin is due to fight Polish boxer Kamil Szeremeta on Friday in defence of his IBF middleweight championship, and took the time to respond to the American veteran.
“You know Oscar, you know how dirty his mouth is,” Golovkin said.
“Everything involving Gennadiy Golovkin for him is a nightmare. He can say whatever. But let me put it this way — if I got an opportunity to legally kill a person in the ring, I might seize it.”
De La Hoya — who now heads up the Golden Boy organisation — and Golovkin have often exchanged insults, particularly during the promotion of his two fights with Canelo Alvarez in 2017 and 2018.
Returning to the fight at hand against Szeremeta, Golovkin made it clear he was happy to be back in the ring after more than a year away. He last fought Sergiy Derevyanchenko in October 2019.
He said of the coronavirus-enforced break: “It was a long pause. There was enough time to miss boxing and forget certain things. The training was good. I went through my standard training and it went well and I'm ready.”