Gennady “GGG” Golovkin: Real McCoy or Wind Up Toy?

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By Travis Fleming

There has been a lot of debate as to whether or not Gennady “GGG” Golovkin is the real deal. Is he being ranked too highly based on excitement such as Arturo Gatti and Michael Katsidis? Is he just a one dimensional offensive machine that will be beaten once he faces someone who can withstand his assault and hit back hard enough to keep him honest? Can he be out boxed and outsmarted by a master technician who can nullify his strengths? When he retires will he rank among the top Middleweights of all time like Marvin Hagler, Carlos Monzon and Bernard Hopkins?

There’s a lot of questions that remain to be answered but a lot of the criticism that surrounds GGG is currently unwarranted. At the same time, although he has destroyed every man put in the ring with him, he cannot be ranked as high as many have him ranked due to a lack of top notch opposition. This is of no fault of his own, many fighters have ducked the dangerously hard hitting Kazakh, but you don’t get an elevated rank for being avoided and you don’t get an automatic boost to your resume for scaring other fighters. The only way to raise your ranking is by fighting and beating top ranked opponents. Unfortunately some fighters get avoided and never get to show their true greatness, such as Joe Calzaghe, but you cannot rank them higher based on misfortune over those who have been blessed enough to get other greats or big name fighters in the ring and emerge victorious. It’s a game of show and prove and only those given the opportunity to do so get the recognition.

So far Golovkin has done what he can to get other top names, they seem to want no part of him other than the bigger Super Middleweight champion Andre Ward. GGG’s team have stated that a future showdown with Ward is possible, but first they want to build up the fight and take care of business at Middleweight, as they should. Golovkin is a Middleweight and shouldn’t have to face Ward until he’s accomplished all he can in his own division.

Since Golovkin emerged on the scene and picked up his WBA title then defended it with the most impressive string of knockouts in recent history, he has been chasing a shot at the Lineal Middleweight championship of the world. An aging Sergio Martinez, holding that very title, opted for bigger money fights until he lost to Miguel Cotto. Miguel Cotto has done everything in his power to avoid GGG including sitting on the title for nearly a year and now being rumored to defend it in a voluntary defense against an old man career junior middleweight in Cornelius Bundrage which is causing quite the uproar among boxing fans who want to see the top Middleweight in Golovkin get his long awaited and long deserved opportunity to grab the lineal belt and be crowned king.

The WBC has ordered that Cotto must defend the WBC title vs GGG next or vacate and allow GGG to fight the next top rated contender for the title in the fall. Tired of waiting for his shot, GGG wisely took on and knocked out Marco Antonio Rubio last year to get the interim WBC title, thus making him the mandatory challenger for Miguel Cotto. Regardless whether or not Cotto faces him, by becoming WBC interim champ, GGG will finally get the chance to fight for the title many feel he deserves. Most have ranked him as the #1 middleweight for nearly 2 years now despite not getting his shot at the lineal title.

While chasing the lineal title, GGG has amassed the greatest KO streak in Middleweight championship history with 13 KO’s in 13 title defenses and he is well on his way to surpassing Carlos Monzon for the 2nd most middleweight title defenses at 14. He has already passed the great Marvin Hagler’s 12 and can very well pass Bernard Hopkins’ record 20 defenses if he opts to remain at middleweight for 2 or 3 more years. Granted the 3 aforementioned greats faced a much higher level of opposition.

Since he won the title, not many fighters have been willing to risk getting in the ring with him so he has had to settle for C and B class fighters but he has done exactly what a great fighter should and made short work of everyone who wasn’t in his class. Along the way there has been several times people have claimed he was in against his biggest test, only to see GGG dispose of them in the same manner he had done to the lower tiered fighters he left on the canvass in agony. These include power punchers Marco Antonio Rubio and Curtis Stevens, as well as former champion Daniel Geale and former challenger Matthew Macklin, all of whom GGG KO’d with ease.

In his most impressive win to date, just last month, GGG would face his best opponent of his career in Martin Murray who arguably should have been crowned champion twice when he lost a controversial hometown decision Sergio Martinez and when he was awarded a draw against longtime beltholder Felix Sturm when most felt he beat Sturm at home in Germany. Murray is arguably the 2nd best middleweight on Earth and although he took GGG longer than anyone else in GGG’s 13 Middleweight title defenses, Murray was stopped in round 11 after losing every round and not having enough power to stop GGG from swarming him with incredibly patient and calculated pressure. This fight to me is the indicator that GGG is the real deal because I feel that Murray beats any other Middleweight in the world, including champion Miguel Cotto.

Right now at Middleweight I don’t see anyone beating the man, there are few fighters that could present stylistic challenges in the way of Peter Quillin and David Lemieux but GGG likely does the same thing he did to the others who were supposed to be his toughest fights to date. Miguel Cotto would take a horrific beating from the much bigger GGG. It would make the beating he took in his first fight with Antonio Margarito look tame, which is why Cotto will likely vacate the Middleweight championship after his voluntary defense in June and move back down to his own weight class at 154lbs to avoid a career ending thrashing from GGG. The most interesting fight at Middleweight for GGG, in this authors opinion, would be a blockbuster against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez moving up from 154lbs. Alvarez has a great chin, big punch, decent skill set and has done well in sparring with GGG. I don’t see Canelo winning but if this fight happens we might actually see GGG have to deal with a bit of adversity and, dare I say it, lose a couple rounds along the way.

Stylistically GGG is a joy to watch, he’s a patient killer. He hits harder than anyone in the sport but he never throws caution to the wind. He applies a very calculated pressure, doesn’t make unnecessary movements, never gets wild and excited, has great head movement, has an excellent jab that he uses to place an opponent where he wants them and he cuts off the ring with economic footwork better than anyone I have seen since the great Julio Cesar Chavez. He also employs a steady body attack like Chavez and keeps coming with thudding shots and an excellent punch variety until opponents can withstand no more. He’s like a lion slowly toying with an injured gazelle until the gazelle is too battered to move and succumbs to its injuries. The calm, collective manner in which GGG tactically dismantles an opponent is something to behold. As a pressure fighter he is bound to take the occasional big punch despite excellent head movement but after taking big shots without flinching from Stevens, Rubio and Rosado, who are all heavy handed Middleweights, it’s safe to say that GGG’s chin is solid and it’s going to take more than big power to derail the GGG freight train.

Right now I would rate GGG just inside the top 10 pound for pound fighters in the world. On ability alone, I would put him top 5 but other than Murray and Geale, he doesn’t have enough quality opposition to move him higher. I believe that if given the chance to fight Cotto, Canelo, Quillin, Lemieux, Jacobs that GGG could become top 2 or 3 pound for pound within a couple years. As for his ranking among all-time great Middleweights, although he’s on his way to passing Monzon’s number of defenses, at this point it would be a stretch to include him among the top15 Middleweights ever. Does he have the potential to move up? He sure does. Many of Bernard Hopkins’ defenses weren’t elite level fighters either, but by notching 20 straight defenses the longevity spoke for itself and had him ranked in the top 3 greatest middleweights of all time. Eventually, some bigger names had no choice to get in the ring with Hopkins if they wanted the glory, culminating in Hopkins dismantling of the great Felix “Tito” Trinidad. At some point GGG is going to get his B Hop against “Tito” Trinidad moment, where a highly respected elite fighter is going to step in the ring with him and GGG will get the chance to legitimize his reign.

Right now there is no one from 154lbs to 160 lbs who can beat GGG, and in fact even moving up to Super Middleweight, GGG is good enough to clean out the division of bigger men with one exception in Andre Ward. Ward is the only man from 154lbs to 168lbs who can beat GGG, in fact I would make Ward the heavy favorite and see his size, incredible skill set, toughness and ring smarts as being too much for any fighter from 160 lbs to 175 lbs to handle. I think Ward would have his toughest fight to date in GGG but ultimately Ward wins a 7 rounds to 5 type of decision. Ward is willing to fight GGG if GGG is willing to move up in weight to face him but if I was GGG I would hold out on this fight because there’s no point in leaving Middleweight for a potential loss to a bigger man without doing all that he possibly can at Middleweight first. Plus if Ward wants to return with a bang he can move up in weight himself to fight Kovalev or Stevenson at Light Heavyweight but Ward has said he doesn’t want to move up in weight so, in my opinion, he’s being quite hypocritical in asking GGG to move up for him.

If I were handling GGG I would have him remain at Middleweight until he passes Bernard Hopkins’ record 20 defenses. That’s another 7 fights, so just over 2 years at the rate of activity GGG has been on. This should be enough time to unify the division, face some elite fighters and finally get his shot at the Lineal Championship. Within 7 more Middleweight fights there is no way the Lineal championship and the best of the division can keep avoiding him. Surely by then another big name threat will emerge on the Middleweight scene and GGG will get the chance to notch a career defining win or 2. This would see him climb the pound for pound rankings and secure a legacy as one of the best Middleweights who ever lived. Once he has taken care of business at Middleweight, then he can explore moving up in weight for big fights if they are there in another 2-3 years. Maybe Ward will still be waiting, maybe he will have moved up in weight himself to find legitimate opponents but either way moving up to Super Middleweight before securing his legacy at 160lbs is something I would strongly advise against for GGG.