Gennady Golovkin - Wrong Choice For Fighter Of The Year.

By James Elliott

When the announcement came from the Ring Magazine that Gennady Golovkin was their fighter of the year I immediately let a shout of HOW!!!!


How could this boxer win an award for best fighter of 2013 when he did not defeat anyone of world championship quality. The reason I was so annoyed by this decision is that the Ring's awards hold the most legitimacy of any end of year boxing honours. Whoever they give their awards too are remembered over the years by the majority of boxing fans.


Now don't get me wrong, I think Gennady Golovkin is a good fighter and has the potential to become a boxing superstar.
However his four knock-out victories this year, while impressive, were no way good enough to earn him the fighter of the year.
The way Golovkin destroyed all his opponents this year was world class, but they were A or even B grade fighters in my opinion and therefore the decision to award him this honour is wrong. Gabriel Rosado has never won a world title and whenever he has stepped up to fight anyone note worthy he has been beaten. Alfredo Angulo and Peter Quillin both stopped him when they met.


His only victory of note was over Andre Berto conqueror Jesus Soto Karass who is at best a gate keeper fighter.
Nobuhiro Ishida is a Journeymen who is only known in boxing circles for upsetting James Kirkland two and a half years ago, and Kirkland's star has drastically fallen since that fight. Whilst it was a great upset he followed that fight by losing to Paul Williams in a one sided bout and former WBO middleweight champion Dmitry Pirog. Ishida also dropped a split decision to Rigoberto Alvarez, the brother of "Canelo" Alvarez.


Again this is a fighter who has never won a world or beaten enough big names to allow anybody to regard him as top line professional. Matthew Macklin is the best opponent Golovkin faced this year. He pushed Martinez close in 2012 and should have got the decision when he fought Felix Sturm back in 2011, but unfortunately he did not. Golovkin's dismantling of Macklin I admit impressed me greatly but his handlers could only follow up by putting him in with Curtis Stevens, another gate keeper who has defeated no boxer of any worth and like Golovkin's three other opponents, no world title victory. GGG made a big statement this year and cemented himself as the number two middleweight in the world, but he is not worthy of winning this award for fighter of the year.


The boxer that should have received the Ring Magazine's award is the same boxer that won Espn's and Yahoo's.
Floyd "Money" Mayweather. Two dominant wins over two world class world champions in Robert Guerrero and Saul "Canelo" Alvarez who have fought top level opponents, won two world titles each and (At the time they fought Mayweather) pound for pound contenders. How anyone could have chosen Golovkin over Mayweather for this honour is mind boggling.

http://v2journal.com/16/post/2014/01/gennady-golovkin-the-wrong-choice-for-fighter-of-the-year.html

If the Ring magazine says it then it must be true. This can now be used as official.

Totally agree. If floyd has the decency to fight more than one overmatched opponent in a year, the very least we can do is make him fighter of the year.

Is fighter of the year, just the best fighter who fought that year? Then its the p4p number one every time. If its the best performances in that year, then its relative to ability and expectation. Floyd put on a masterclass against  Canelo but it was hardly a shock. Anyone who expected Guerrero to be remotely competitive needs to get more familiar with their onions.

Stevenson for me.

Can see Truss using this in future, just needs the right argument to bring it up.

Stevenson or Rigondeux for me, but the ring is owned by GB so that wasn't goig to happen

HBO are trying to make GGG a superstar and this can help get him some hype but unfortunately he doesn't deserve the award

Can I add guys, this isn't the official ring magazine award, this was voted for by fans.

As a fully paid up member of the GGG hype club I agree entirely hampo.

Although I'd give it to Stevenson over Mayweather as he's turned the hierarchy of the 175 division on its head.

I like the opinionated style of the article even if I don't personally agree with its premise.

Stevenson fought 4 times against good opposition and looked mightily impressive. To me that's the type of sustained performance that the Fighter of the Year award is designed to reward.

From reading different articles over the year it was apparent that American fans fell in love with GGG and he is probably  No.1 on the HBO roster as a potential money maker.  The Kovelev fight will be off the scale hype wise when it does happen which seems a certainty with both fighters on HBO. I'm not surprised Govalev is the fans choice given how explosive a fighter he is. Not all fight fans want to watch chess matches.