Gennady Golovkin, One Of The Best Ever?

Gennady Golovkin, One Of The Best Ever? By Connor Mack

 http://goo.gl/oB1At0

Look forward to seeing what Trussman has to say after reading this article

Well I guess its a title chosen to promote debate.

John Mugabi, Julian Jackson. They'd be the best ever by broadly the same criteria... Then they met great fighters themselves.

Despite how long he's been a pro and how long he's been 'champion' golovkin is still very much 'potentially great'.

Let's hope he gets the fights that prove it one way or the other.

Can't access, could someone be a sweetheart and do the ol' copy and paste job for me please? Ta.

http://www.v2boxing.co.uk/#!Gennady-Golovkin-One-Of-The-Best-Ever/c1xmj/5551d0920cf2adc1ad27f9ba

Gennady Golovkin has come a long way from his rough, and at times turbulent upbringing in Soviet controlled Kazakhstan. He was born on the 8th of April 1982 in Karaganda, which is an industrial city, built to exploit the nearby coal mines using prisoners from the large network of labour camps which had been established in the area.

Throughout his youth, Gennady looked up to his older brothers, Sergey and Vadim, both of whom joined the Soviet Army when he was eight. The three brothers would often walk the streets together and pick men out from a crowd. “Are you afraid of him?” they would say, When Gennady replied “no”, they encouraged him to fight them.

”Karaganda is a crazy area, crazy city - very dangerous for normal life” Gennady explains “I'd go with my friends to a soccer stadium and fight. A different boxing gym? Fight. Streets in different areas? Fight”.

The demise of his two older siblings while on duty in the 1990’s had a major impact on Gennady and the rest of the family, however, turning tragedy into triumph, he and his twin brother Max turned to boxing, and began to excel. In time both brothers were known as the best boxers in Kazakhstan and as a result, they often ended up due to face each other in the finals of championship events, but staying true to their mother’s wishes, they refused to fight one another.

It wasn’t long before Gennady reached the pinnacle of his amateur career. In 2003, he struck gold at the World Amateur Boxing Championships in Bangkok, beating future world champions Andy Lee, Matvey Koborov and Lucian Bute. In 2004, he went to the Olympics in Athens, were he beat Andre Dirrell and Ramandan Yesser, but ultimately came up short in a scrappy final against Gaydarbek Gaydarbeko. After another loss at the 2005 World Championships, Gennady decided to call it a day on his amateur career and turn professional. He retired with an extraordinary record of 345 wins and 5 losses.

Golovkin made his professional debut in May 2006, signing for Universum Box Promotions. During this time, the Kazakh man, notched up a record of 14-0 (11 KO’s). He felt unfulfilled however, due to what he saw as favouritism towards Felix Sturm and Sebastian Zbik, and decided to terminate his contract with the struggling company in January 2010.

After this, it was onwards and upwards for the man widely known as GGG. He signed with K2 Promotions and started training in The Summit Gym in Big Bear, California under the guidance of famed trainer, Abel Sanchez, who steered the likes of Terry Norris, Samuel Peter and Carlos Baldimor to World Championship success.

Not long after they started training together, Sanchez realised that he had something special in Golovkin. About a month into training, Sanchez boosted GGG’s confidence by writing the names of Ali, Floyd and other well-known, legendary fighters up on a board. “You could be here” Abel explained “give me three years, stick with me, and I promise you, I’ll make you into the best Middleweight Champion out there”. For all intents and purposes, it looks like Sanchez, was pretty spot on with his prediction.

Abel Sanchez wasted no time in moulding Golovkin into the kind of fighter he envisaged. “From the beginning, we sat down together and I showed him (Golovkin) a tape of Julio Cesar Chavez Sr fighting Edwin Rosario” Sanchez elaborates “Give me a few years, I will convert you into a Chavez, the difference being that you have extremely heavy hands and will be deadly with it”. This is the ‘Mexican Style’ that Gennady often alludes to during his interviews. A kind of Mexican – Kazakh hybrid style, when we dissect the components of this style, it becomes clear why it’s so effective.
One of the first things we notice when we watch Golovkin, is how easily he’s able to cut off the ring and stop his opponents escaping out of range. This is due to an old school, footwork technique known as Shifting, which involves the boxer switching stances while moving forward. It is often accompanied by punches which produce more power because of the momentum generated from changing foot placement. It was used by legendary yesteryear boxers such as Jack Dempsey and Stanley Ketchel but has largely been forgotten by contemporary boxers and trainers alike. Some more modern adopters of this technique include Roberto Duran, Marvin Hagler, Dmity Pirog, Mike Tyson, Manny Pacquiao and as mentioned, Gennady Golovkin who has done nothing short of master it.
Another great attribute that GGG possesses, is the ability to counter punch effectively. As was the case with Mike Tyson, aggressive fighters gifted with immense punching power, tend to get overlooked when it comes to their boxing ability and ring IQ. Gennady Golovkin is no exception. One thing that he is particularly good at, is taking his opponents jab away from them. If you watch his fights closely, you will often see him parrying/catching the jab and returning one of his own. Catching and parrying isn’t his only tool for nullifying the jab however, he has been known to counter with the right hand over the top or even from below using the uppercut.

In a subtle way, Golovkin also has a great defence built into his style. He slips, bobs and weaves punches very comfortably. He does a lot of spoiling on the inside using his arms and elbows to block incoming shots. He uses the shoulder roll as his last line of defence which makes him even harder to catch cleanly.

Many of Golovkins opponents have commented on how relaxed and composed he is in the ring. Martin Murray made this comment after their fight “he was coming forward in 2nd gear, and I was going backward in 5th”. This is testament to GGG’s relaxed, but relentless stalking style. Andy Lee, who Golovkin beat in the amateurs, had this to say “He always has his opponent on edge. You’re in a constant state of panic, thinking he’s going to attack you at any moment, but he’s totally relaxed. It’s no big deal to him. He puts pressure on you with his feet all the time. And its mental pressure”.
Gennady won his first world title in August 2010, by emptying Milton Nunez in the first round in Panama. He was unleashed on the American public soon after this when he made his HBO debut, forcing a stoppage on Grzegorz Proksa. He then careered through the middleweight division, like a runaway freight train, knocking over all comers including Gabriel Rosado who left the ring looking like he’d been in a car crash, Matthew Macklin who was obliterated by a left hook to the body in the 3rd and Daniel Geale, who was stopped in the early rounds after eating a huge right hand which sent him crashing to the canvas.

In February of this year, Martin Murray ran the GGG gauntlet in Monte Carlo. The tough St Helens man, put on a courageous, but ineffective performance against the man many see as the most avoided fighter in boxing. Murray was on the back foot most of the fight and was knocked down twice in the 4th and once in the 10th. Showing his strength, Murray was able to rise to his feet each time and survive the rounds. Inevitably the fight was stopped in 11th; this however was an achievement for Murray in itself as no one had ever lasted in the ring this long with the future P4P king.

So at this stage in his career, how does Golovkin compare to other great middleweights from previous eras? For a bit of fun, I thought I would pull out some statistics and relate them to where GGG currently stands:







Now before anybody blows a gasket, I’m not saying that Golovkin is better than any of these fighters, nor have I taken into account quality of opposition. I merely wanted to pull out some comparison statistics for the purposes of this article and for my own interest. It would be true to say that he hasn’t faced an elite level fighter, but I don’t believe that this is his fault, as he seems willing to fight anybody, but is being avoided like the plague. What is noteworthy in this set of statistics is his 90.63% KO ratio, which is the highest in middleweight history.

Golovkin returns to the ring this weekend, against Southpaw Willie Monroe Jr. The American has a record of 19 wins with 6 KO’s and 1 loss. Not a bad resume but it certainly doesn’t look like he has enough power to trouble the Kazakh or even keep him at bay for that matter. Interestingly enough Monroe Jr is the great nephew of the second man to beat Marvin Hagler as a professional. Will Junior be able to follow in his great uncle’s footsteps, I somehow doubt it.

So who’s next for Gennady Golovkin? After watching the demolition job Canelo Alvarez pulled off on Kirkland at the weekend, I would personally love to see these two titans clash. Alvarez looks almost too big for Super Welterweight as it is, and I think a step up for him will be inevitable. I don’t think that there is another fight out there at the minute which would generate the same interest from the fans as this one. Mexican Style vs Mexican Style, it has the makings of a classic, whether it happens or not, we will just have to wait and see.

He's top 20 at middleweight but that's about as high as he can at the moment, no actual reign as middleweight champion combined with fairly average opposition does not make one a great middleweight.

The KO% statistic sounds impressive but does need to be countered with the fact it would be lower had he had to face LaMotta, Briscoe, Griffith, Valdes, Duran, Leonard, Fullmer, Basillio or any of the other iron chinned or generally great boxers the others mentioned faced.

Way to early to suggest that. He would need a fair few years of named, ranked opponents to get to that status.

He hasn't put a foot wrong in his amateur or professional careers but needs Cotto and Canelo as a stepping stone to get to that discussion to even start and no way Cotto will fight him and doubt Canelo would for a few years.

Is this a joke?

Have you bothered reading the article?

No the title was bad enough

I will read it now.

Thanks for that, SOF.

I think Golovkin might end up being similarly regarded at Middleweight as Shane Mosley is at Lightweight. Viewed as a probable head to head monster in the hypothetical match ups with other top fighters from that division's history, looks a million dollars and utterly dominant against whoever does get in the ring with him and leaving no doubt that he could easily succeed against a better class of opposition, but unfortunately just lacking the opponents at that particular time to really justify being put amongst the greats. A kind of 'what if' story to an extent.

Appreciate that Connor's playing a bit of devil's advocate with the stats, and let's make one thing clear - regardless of context, they are mightily impressive ones on Golovkin's ledger. But that doesn't mean context can be ignored completely. If we're talking about win / knockout percentages after their first 32 fights, Robinson fought and beat three bonafide world champions (Angott, Servo and Zivic) within twelve months of turning professional. The only full 'titlists' (not counting interim titles) that Golovkin has faced so far have been Ouma and Geale - good fighters, but it would probably take an era of unparalelled weakness at either 154 / 160 for either of them to ever become a divisional top dog as the likes of Angott, Servo and Zivic were in their divisions, even if only fleetingly.

I think Golovkin is a superb fighter who's been unfortunate to gatecrash a pretty poor era for the Middleweights from 2010-2015. If he comes along twenty years earlier, say 1990-1995, he'd have been stepping in to a division at any one time boasting some of Michael Nunn, James Toney, Roy Jones, Bernard Hopkins, Mike McCallum, Reggie Johnson, Jorge Castro, Sumbu Kalambay, Julian Jackson, Gerald McClellan, Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank and Steve Collins, all of whom held or contested the titles in that time frame. Does he have anything like the demolition roll against those guys as he's had in the last few years? Of course not. Doesn't mean he wouldn't still have great success in that era - I believe he could have - but just a reminder why stats need to be approached with a bit of caution.

A great Middleweight talent who probably won't get the results to rubber-stamp it is how I think Golovkin might be remembered.

Gennady is a very good, even possibly great middleweight fighting in a dire era. He can only beat who is put in front of him.

But lets be honest. His competition has been pretty poor thus far!

He probably won't get the results at middleweight to stamp it Chris, Chris. There are fights at super and light heavy that might do the job... Weights he says he's happy to go to. Fingers crossed.

Like Connor, I think most of us would quite like to see Alvarez step up first though. Hey we can dream.

We have had an excellent era for SMW the past five years. Some of the all time great fighters would have stepped up four years ago. Especially given how regularly he manages to find poor opposition to beat up.

Lance wrote:We have had an excellent era for SMW the past five years. Some of the all time great fighters would have stepped up four years ago. Especially given how regularly he manages to find poor opposition to beat up.

I agree with this. SMW has been good in recent times. Much better than Middle.

Some fans think cleaning out a crappy division is the bollox others like me prefer weight jumpers looking for challenges...

Enough of the former to HOF this guy...

I thought you liked Ward, who refuses to move anywhere

Wards made the made the big move to 172lbs to fight Paul Smith and he also fought in the Cayman Islands once so cool the jets on those accusations

He had good opponents or don't you rate Froch, Kessler and Dawson...

I said clean out crappy divisions..

I'm not interested in playing word games Derby..

Yeah he's cleaned it out and after that he's sat around doing nothing, tut tut.

Someones in a mood today

He's s**t then...

Have a guy here who think its wonderful when someone gives any old useless Brit a shot...

Ward gives Smith a chance at the big time and he's a t**t..

Consistency is alive and well..

So your now saying your happy that Ward give Smith the shot???

No I'm saying you should be.....

He's been there and got the T shirt...

Kessler,Froch, Dawson....Which wins by GGG are comparable..

I am happy Smith got the shot, i've said it countless times but you can't blame anyone that's offered the chance for taking it, blame the one giving the offer.

GGG needs to up his opponents too so no in my eyes, not a great, just a very exciting boxer that gets the fans talking, maybe Ward should take a leaf out of his book.

Why should he alter the way he fights to appease the fans Derby?

Wards record at super middleweight is head and shoulders above Golovkins at the moment so what is acceptable for one isn't necessarily acceptable for the other, GGG still needs to prove himself whereas Ward is proven.

Derby is just on the wind up.......

If he isn't...He's an idiot.

Because he could get a lot more fans on his side Hammer, I don't mind Ward (moreso since i've been looking into the technical side of things) but it annoys me the double standards that go on.

I'd like to see Ward step up, your right in that he's got nothing left to prove at super so why not??? There's a niggle in my head that says maybe he won't be as good up there, but i'd love to see it

(Been funny watching you run rings round certain herberts btw )

Is there actually a reason why he hasn't moved up yet???

If he was concerned by how many fans he had he'd have done something about that a long time ago, he gets in the ring does what he has to do with minimal risk and wins easily. I have to assume that he'll be moving up to light heavyweight after the Smith fight or the catchweight makes no sense not that it makes sense anyway.

GGG is better for the image of boxing but we shouldn't confuse that with what a boxer should or shouldn't do but for me I give more leeway to somebody who has achieved more than someone who is of yet unproven.

If he moves up after Smith, i'll be with you in giving him the plaudits. BTW haven't said he doesn't deserve the accolade just don't see why Trussy is absolutely certain that GGG has to move up (I think he looks a bit smallish) to be given ANY plaudits (The discussion of avoidance can't really be answered) whilst Ward doesn't have to move but is still one of the greatest ever.

Right so this guy is defending a fighter that hasn't beaten any top fighters and hasn't cleaned out his division over an American that has done both..

He'll move up when he wants to..

Supermidd unlike you isn't full of crap..

You mean like you Truss, if GGG was a yank you'd be creaming yourself over him and making any excuse you could to put over the fact that it's everyone else that's avoiding him.

As he's not then he's useless etc etc, it's getting pretty sad now as you can spot it in every post you make, hence why it ain't just me that brings it up.

Because I never criticise any yanks like Holmes, Louis, Hagler, Hoppo, Wilder, Paulie etc etc.....

Getting desperate are we...

Who needs to get desperate, you only have to go over some of your posts in the last month, especially against the Brits. Absolutely trying to muller them for taking an opportunity offered by the champion.

As I said it's pretty transparent, 'bit like you pulling out the 'your following the party line' quote when i've disagreed with you in the past (Stephen Smith comes to mind)

Derbymanc wrote:If he moves up after Smith, i'll be with you in giving him the plaudits. BTW haven't said he doesn't deserve the accolade just don't see why Trussy is absolutely certain that GGG has to move up (I think he looks a bit smallish) to be given ANY plaudits (The discussion of avoidance can't really be answered) whilst Ward doesn't have to move but is still one of the greatest ever.

It's about levels, if we say Ward is a 7/10 then GGG would be a 6/10, for him to reach Ward's level I think he needs to move up and tackle some of the world level guys there; the Dirrells, Groves, Degales of the world are better than anything at Middleweight except for Alvarez. For to progress he likewise does need to move up as the better wins for GGG would be lesser wins for him if that makes sense, if stepped up and beat any two of Kovalev, Stevenson or Beterbiev then he'd be a 9/10.

To be honest Hammer, I agree with you now although wouldn't have 6 months ago. The big fighters don't look like they're going to step into the ring with him and as his ranking etc shows at the minute I don't see how he can elevate himself anymore. Hopefully it's something he's thinking about too (although I doubt it)

Ward has been there and done it....

Very few fighters these days have....

I like Golovkin. He's a breath of fresh air in Boxing today in that he doesn't sidestep or duck anyone in his division. It's not his fault that he can't get the fights he so desires. Granted the MW division isn't exactly at full strength but you can only fight what's in front of you. Quillin vacated his title and ran away. Jermain Taylor had legal issues and has been stripped and it's very clear that Cotto wants nothing to do with him. Martinez is finished. GGG's already beaten Geale and Murray; Sturm has moved up which pretty much only leaves Lee (likely to fight Quillin again) and Lemieux (soon to be fighting for the now vacant IBF title).

Shame really - I think he's talented enough to warrant it. However, I don't think we should all be talking about him moving up in weight. He looks relatively small as a middleweight, and the extra 8lbs might do him no favours at all. Then, if he won a title at 168, would some give him the same derision as many do for Cotto? It seems that no matter what he does, he's damned on these boards. I am not for one minute suggesting that he's an all-time great - he's not. His record doesn't deserve it at all. What he is, though, is an exciting fighter who is unbeaten. Let him clean up at middle, then maybe aim for the De Gales, Abrahams and Groves of this world in a move up to 168 before he sets his sights on a Ward showdown.

Oh hello....All hail Emperor Ming..

It's not GGG's fault he's defended against average fighters for 5 yrs.

Everyone is scared...

Yep..

Stick to smileys.......

You make more sense..

Truss, aside from moving up to 168lbs to fight Ward (who is your obvious favourite), what would you like Golovkin to do?

It's not a crime to like a fighter - yet you seem to think he's rubbish unless he fights someone who isn't in his weight class. Seems a bit harsh to me. And if you actually read my post, I said I don't think that everyone is scared - only Quillin and Cotto.

I have also stated that he's a long way from being an all-time great. So come on big man - who would you have him fight?

When have I said he's rubbish...

Ok. You don't like him then because he hasn't done enough. What do you want him to do that doesn't involve anybody from a different weight???

Talk with an American accent, wear the American Flag on his shorts and change his name to Gerald(o) Lincoln.

I've heard this 'golovkin is too small to move up' argument a few times. He's hardly a delicate frame and is within an inch either way height wise as benn, Eubank, Roy jones, toney, Calzaghe.

Pacquiao is an inch either way to the 160lbs champion of the world... Miguel Cotto

Someone needs to create a Super 6 tournament for GGG then, ensuring he has home advantage throughout, so he can get the names onto his CV.

Mr Bounce wrote:Ok. You don't like him then because he hasn't done enough. What do you want him to do that doesn't involve anybody from a different weight???

Truss is already on record saying GGG should give away his entire purse to pay ducking North American's to get in the ring with him.

TopHat24/7 wrote:Someone needs to create a Super 6 tournament for GGG then, ensuring he has home advantage throughout, so he can get the names onto his CV.

Why bother, sure he is already a legend beating up Macklin and Murray.