Gennady Golovkin?

[Dr. Will]

Let's face it, when he was making a name for himself, we believed he'd be one of the very best Middleweights of all time and a lot of people even thought he could be the best. Most people felt Golovkin would've been at very least 50-50 against a prime Bernard Hopkins.

Then we see him having many unnecessary shots landed by Monroe - we brushed that aside and said Golovkin wanted 'to give fans a big drama show just come say hi, this is boxing, respect to boxing'.

He then got lit up by someone who looks a clear division smaller than him in Kell Brook - and because he broke his other eye socket in the Errol Spence fight too, Brook has glass eyes so it wasn't just a 'Golovkin thing'.
We made an excuse and I think there's partial truth in it - Golovkin didn't respect Kell's power.

Then comes Danny Jacobs.

Now comes Canelo Alvarez. Who else had virtually even matches with Canelo? Lara, over the hill Cotto and to a much lesser extent Austin Trout.

Golovkin has been on a lower level than we expected. He is just a conventional boxers nightmare and has been trained to sit on his punches and take them out - beating opponents by knockout after breaking them down does not make you better at boxing.
Yes, he's 35 years old but he still proved he is operating on that higher level athletically.

 

[JayE]

Outside of some fanatics I don't know anyone who was looking at him as a candidate for the greatest MW of all time. He's a guy who took awhile to get in the position to get big fights, and then once he was there, he was largely avoided by the top talent for a number of years (Martinez, Cotto, and then Canelo for about a year and a half). The MW division has also been lacking strong talent for several years. Neither of those things were his fault.

When he finally got his fights against elite competition (Jacobs and Canelo), he was already well into his 30s with a style that doesn't necessarily age that well (granted, he's taken very little damage in his career). Is he great on the level of the likes of Greb, Hopkins, Hagler, Monzon, or Robinson? No, but he's still carved himself out a very impressive career under somewhat adverse circumstances (and that career is by no means over).

Sumbu Kalambay outboxed a prime Mike McCallum. On Kalambay's best night, he'd give any MW in history problems. Saying he'd trouble or beat Golovkin doesn't reflect all that poorly on Golovkin.

I'm not even going to try and figure out what you were going for with that last paragraph.

 

[Sunfish]

I love how boxrec has done their all time mw list. Out of these two fighters which is 11th and which is 60th.

Gennady golovkin
Sexy

 

[4daLuLZ]

Now comes Canelo Alvarez. Who else had virtually even matches with Canelo? Lara, over the hill Cotto and to a much lesser extent Austin Trout.

Yeah....it's nice that you have those guys listed as having "virtual even matches with Canelo". Those guys all lost on record and had scorecards of 119-110 and 118-111 against them.
Even Mr Vegas himself, Mayweather, barely escaped with a majority win against a 22 year old underweight Canelo......after dominating his ass more than any fighter Floyd had recently fought.

GGG drew with him. What does that make his performance against him ?

 

[Dr. Will]

Yeah....it's nice that you have those guys listed as having "virtual even matches with Canelo". Those guys all lost on record and had scorecards of 119-110 and 118-111 against them.
Even Mr Vegas himself, Mayweather, barely escaped with a majority win against a 22 year old underweight Canelo......after dominating his ass more than any fighter Floyd had recently fought.

GGG drew with him. What does that make his performance against him ?

You believe the scorecards - one of the biggest errors you can make when watching boxing.

 

[proncley]

Is he great on the level of the likes of Greb, Hopkins, Hagler, Monzon, or Robinson? No, but he's still carved himself out a very impressive career under somewhat adverse circumstances (and that career is by no means over).

I think he's abolutely on their level of greatness. When you take a closer look at their resume, you'll see that Robinson went up to middleweight towards his late 30s. Did well, but also collected some losses by the time he was in his mid 30s. I don't see how Golovkin is clearly below him.

Hagler had more pro fights than Golovkin, but he turned pro when as a teenager. We have to consider that Golovkin was an extraordinary amateur, and just based on his long amateur schooling, he'd be a tough fight for Hagler.
You pointed out Golovkin's level of competition, but Hagler also had his great fight against Hearns, who finished 2-2 at middleweight, losing twice by KO. Then there were Duran, Roldan and Mugabi, who I'm not sure how to rate at middleweight. Golovkin was ducked by Felix Sturm, possibly by Martinez and Cotto too, and the Pirog fight didn't come about.

Monzon, how familiar are you with his opposition he boxed in Argentina? Personally I'm much more familiar with Macklin, Murray, Geale, Rosado, Rubio, Lemieux, Jacobs... Good contenders, but not great ones...I think it's the same with Robinson's, Hagler's and Monzon's opposition.

Different era's, tough to compare, but I think Golovkin is absolutely up there.

He's just not comparable to great ones who won championships at severel weight classes like Roy Jones, Pacquiao, Floyd.

 

[Dr. Will]

Outside of some fanatics I don't know anyone who was looking at him as a candidate for the greatest MW of all time. He's a guy who took awhile to get in the position to get big fights, and then once he was there, he was largely avoided by the top talent for a number of years (Martinez, Cotto, and then Canelo for about a year and a half). The MW division has also been lacking strong talent for several years. Neither of those things were his fault.

When he finally got his fights against elite competition (Jacobs and Canelo), he was already well into his 30s with a style that doesn't necessarily age that well (granted, he's taken very little damage in his career). Is he great on the level of the likes of Greb, Hopkins, Hagler, Monzon, or Robinson? No, but he's still carved himself out a very impressive career under somewhat adverse circumstances (and that career is by no means over).

Sumbu Kalambay outboxed a prime Mike McCallum. On Kalambay's best night, he'd give any MW in history problems. Saying he'd trouble or beat Golovkin doesn't reflect all that poorly on Golovkin.

I'm not even going to try and figure out what you were going for with that last paragraph.

Greatest is not the same as best. I was referring to 'best'. A large number of people were saying he compares favourably to most of the best MW's who he quite clearly wouldn't beat.
Yes, he was largely avoided and was ducked by three lineal champions.

Indeed, he has taken very little damage and looked in top condition, so I don't think the 'he's in his 30's with an aggressive style' argument is a great one although I agree it has some weight to it, however he has looked in decent shape.

With regards to the last paragraph...he was better at point-scoring before, he was more dynamic and had better defence in the amateurs and his earlier pro days. He just needed to tighten up on ring positioning. However, working with Abel Sanchez has made him prioritise a style which takes away from this. Outboxing opponents has become more difficult for him.

 

[Sunfish]

Greatest is not the same as best. I was referring to 'best'. A large number of people were saying he compares favourably to most of the best MW's who he quite clearly wouldn't beat.
Yes, he was largely avoided and was ducked by three lineal champions.

Indeed, he has taken very little damage and looked in top condition, so I don't think the 'he's in his 30's with an aggressive style' argument is a great one although I agree it has some weight to it, however he has looked in decent shape.

With regards to the last paragraph...he was better at point-scoring before, he was more dynamic and had better defence in the amateurs and his earlier pro days. He just needed to tighten up on ring positioning. However, working with Abel Sanchez has made him prioritise a style which takes away from this. Outboxing opponents has become more difficult for him.

He didn't get ducked by anyone, get a grip. Canelo has fought him, Martinez was finished by cotto and cotto was fighting Martinez. If you try and play a side when you're clearly not you can't then say the other guy is ducking.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Mayweather, barely escaped with a majority win against a 22 year old underweight Canelo

Stop confusing age with experience. 22 or 32 he was going into that Mayweather fight with 43 fights. He may not of been as good as he is today but I hate when people bring up the fact that he was 22. I follow MuayThai. There are 18 year old MT fighters who would school 28 year olds because they have experience.

Secondly he weighed in at 153 against Trout which was the fight before Mayweather which was at 152. Does 1 pound really make that much difference? Floyd couldn't even make 152. He weighed in at 150.

 

[Pugilistic]

I will say this. Golovkin did disappoint me on some level technically. I was frustrated with his predictability and inability to mix up his combinations. Where were his feints?

 

[proncley]

Stop confusing age with experience. 22 or 32 he was going into that Mayweather fight with 43 fights. He may not of been as good as he is today but I hate when people bring up the fact that he was 22. I follow MuayThai. There are 18 year old MT fighters who would school 28 year olds because they have experience.

Secondly he weighed in at 153 against Trout which was the fight before Mayweather which was at 152. Does 1 pound really make that much difference? Floyd couldn't even make 152. He weighed in at 150.

It matters when you turn pro at 15, meaning he had no notable amateur pedigree and learned as a pro.
The issue with the argument is that he had merely 7 fights since then, among them one questionable decision vs. Lara, and Kirkland / Chavez Jr. couldn't offer much.

Canelo from a few days ago is just as good as the Canelo from the Cotto fight. Between the Cotto and Floyd fight, there's a time gap of merely 2 years. If he did improve, then tell me where the improvement is. He always had a good punch selection, upperbody mobility and counterpunching ability.

 

[bobthebuilder]

I wasn't underwhelmed by Golovkin. I expected Canelo to win by decision, because I thought he would be difficult to hit cleanly and would counter Golovkin more than he did. Against someone like Canelo who doesn't get hit cleanly and has a first class chin, it seemed unlikely that Golovkin would get near to a win by KO. I don't think Canelo has been knocked down in his career, and these days he is built like a tank.

 

[Oscaraps]

Not really I was impressed by the guy"s defense, the way he was able to block and deflect a lot of shots while staying completely in balance moving forward is very impressive. He's also 35..... so I don't think he's at his prime anymore but one thing that has been underwhelming is his power, I mean they were saying he hits like a hw, calling him p4p hardest punchest.

 

[ccm22]

GGG gets an unreasonable amount of criticism because he failed to knock out two elite fighters, and got hit a few times by a puffed up welterweight. That seems a bit harsh. I'd say his last two performances are more impressive than, say, Hopkins' win over Oscar de la Hoya. I mean, imagine a guy who fought most of his career at 160 stopping a guy who fought His first twelve or so at 130.

As for his level of competition before the Brook fight, well, he fought who he could. Maybe the names were drawn from the b-list, but were they really any worse than Caveman Lee or Antwon Echols?

 

[aries]

Not really I was impressed by the guy"s defense, the way he was able to block and deflect a lot of shots while staying completely in balance moving forward is very impressive. He's also 35..... so I don't think he's at his prime anymore but one thing that has been underwhelming is his power, I mean they were saying he hits like a hw, calling him p4p hardest punchest.

I really think the power thing is because he didn't land any of his heaviest thrown shots clean. Canelo was just too good defensively for GGG to be able to load up and catch him.

I admittedly was a bit underwhelmed by GGG's performance. I thought he'd be able to step on the gas from the first bell but it took him at least 4 rounds to get over his nerves (was really surprised how nervous he got) before he started marching forward with sustained pressure. And the fact that we wasn't able to land any really heavy shots surprised me. That's probably because I didn't factor in how difficult Canelo would be to hit. I still think GGG did enough to get the win but it wasn't the destruction I thought it was going to be, not by a long shot.

 

[moosaev]

I never bought into the Hagler comparisons, GGG was never a candidate for all time best MW, not even close. That said, he is a sure fire hall of famer and has displayed an incredible amount of heart and skill. If anything i've grown to respect him more after the Jacobs & Canelo fights.

GGG has shown true grace under pressure, which is the ultimate test of any boxer. His competition went up as his skills were going down, and he still beat all comers. I don't care what anyone says, GGG flat out beat Canelo (a top 10 P4Per).

 

[burningspear]

I love how boxrec has done their all time mw list. Out of these two fighters which is 11th and which is 60th.

Gennady golovkin
Sexy

Wasn't Martinez JMW for the longest time though...

 

[wilddeuces]

He didn't get ducked by anyone, get a grip. Canelo has fought him, Martinez was finished by cotto and cotto was fighting Martinez. If you try and play a side when you're clearly not you can't then say the other guy is ducking.

Officially, Golovkin was the mandatory for a few, and others simply priced themselves, or flat-out chose to not fight him when offers were on the table.

- Felix Sturm - Golovkin was Sturm's mandatory
- Geale got stripped of his WBA title for not facing Golovkin earlier than when he did, but he did finally fight him. Can't hold that against him too much since he finally got in the ring against a prime Golovkin.
- The overlap with Martinez was small, but there; he he took fights against lower ranked, easier guys than face Golovkin even though the offer was there.
- Peter Quillin himself went on record saying he wanted 5-10 to fight Golovkin, pricing himself out. Canelo, a much more substantial name just got 5 for fighting GGG so Quillin was looking for a price tag to make it untenable.
- GGG was Cotto's mandatory and Cotto fought Geale and then Canelo instead. He avoided his mandatory twice.
- Canelo waited two years for GGG to get a pit past his best. He eventually fought him and the fight was great, but he did wait. I don't think it's fair to hold this one against Canelo too much, but two years is a lot when a guy goes from his peak to past his peak.
- BJS has been clearly avoiding GGG, as has Eubank Jr. who made absolutely insane demands. Not even Eddie Hearn would defend Eubank.
- JCC jr was offered 8 million and he turned down the fight too.

You can like all the guys on the list, and you can't argue how great a boxer Cotto is, or Martinez is (and I'm a huge fan of both), but Golovkin was avoided and neglected even when he was in line and ranked to fight the champions. Every fighter has had a name or two that people raise an eyebrow about when the two get mentioned and neither fought the other, but that's a long list. Sugar Ray Leonard gets criticized a bit for not fighting Pryor (I don't know how much a I agree with that criticism though, I'll have to read over the stuff again), and Rocky Marciano gets criticized for not fighting Patterson, but overall, a list of names like the one Golovkin has as people that refused to fight him is a bit/ a lot unfortunate (depending on who you ask).

It's the fight game, so the fact that people wouldn't fight him and made it into a game of musical chairs is just sad.

 

[Seano]

In his fight with Canelo and with Jacobs I was struck by his inability to adjust and how one dimensional he looked. He's looked flawless up until then but I think a little too reliant on his power.

 

[4daLuLZ]

Stop confusing age with experience. 22 or 32 he was going into that Mayweather fight with 43 fights. He may not of been as good as he is today but I hate when people bring up the fact that he was 22. I follow MuayThai. There are 18 year old MT fighters who would school 28 year olds because they have experience.

Secondly he weighed in at 153 against Trout which was the fight before Mayweather which was at 152. Does 1 pound really make that much difference? Floyd couldn't even make 152. He weighed in at 150.

You, sir, are an idiot.