GGG: All-time great or born too late?
The life, fights and potential legacy of Gennady Gennadyevich Golovkin
Welcome to Double Dutch Boxing, a fortnightly boxing newsletter. If you’re here for the first time, you can subscribe below to receive every edition direct to your inbox. Get in touch by replying to this email for feedback, questions, or anything else you might want to send my way. Thank you for reading.
This past week, I contributed a piece to The 13th Round.
When Prince Naseem fell off his throne goes back 20 years to April 2001, and the Vegas coronation that never was. Hamed vs Barrera was designed to cement Naz's place at the top of the sport...but best laid plans often go awry.
The 13th Round is a fantastic weekly boxing newsletter, so do also subscribe if you aren’t signed up.
The Triple G conundrum
THE LONG READ
“Yeah he’s a hype job, who has he fought?” proclaims Curtis ‘Kryptonite’ Stevens to the waiting media, having also held a fake ‘RIP GGG’ funeral online only weeks earlier. It was very clear he did not rate Gennady Golovkin. Dateline November 2013, and Stevens’ verbal assaults continue in the final press conference before their WBA Middleweight title fight; “come Saturday night, I’m gonna f**k Triple G up”. Maintaining a cool demeanour in the face of the verbal battering, Gennady leans into the microphone and simply says “I have just one question for you Stevens…are you serious?” Nothing more needed to be said, his talking would be done in the ring.
Come fight night, live on HBO before a rabid MSG Theater crowd - the majority cheering the fighter from Kazakhstan rather than the ‘home’ New York fighter born and raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn - Golovkin showed how serious he was. In just the second round, a big left hook dropped Stevens to the canvas, and a meme was born from his reaction to the shot once he was downed. Stevens just about made the ref’s count, and though he did continue valiantly he never really recovered, eventually being pulled out of the fight by his corner in the eighth round, broken down and beaten. This has been a familiar tale in the career of the man Jim Lampley called ‘Kazakh Thunder’ - many doubted the stories they’d heard before stepping in the ring, but they were made believers by the final bell.
The superlatives for GGG are considerable. He stopped 23 opponents in a row between 2008 and 2016; has successfully defended Middleweight world titles 21 times; was the unified 160-pound champion (WBC, IBF and WBA) between 2014 and 2018; oh and he holds a ridiculous 87% stoppage ratio in world championship fights. He was also the last great star built by HBO Boxing (gone but definitely not forgotten of course), a fighter who came from humble beginnings, but later went from making his US debut to headlining Madison Square Garden in just two years.
With that said though, some questions about the career of the now-39-year-old do remain. As the finale of his glittering boxing tenure inevitably looms in to view some will debate whether a fighter who held the 160-pound division hostage for the vast majority of his professional journey really did enough to be looked at as a true all-time great, despite all his accomplishments. A victim of circumstance in a sport often unable to enforce the biggest fights at the right times, how will Triple G be remembered once he finally hangs up his gloves?
A huge part of the reason boxing is so fascinating is the personal stories of the boxers themselves. No two are the same, and they are invariably compelling. Gennady Golovkin’s is better than most. He was born to a Russian-Korean family in Karaganda, a Kazakh coal mining city known primarily by Russians as “the middle of nowhere”, so you can imagine how remote it is. GGG first entered a boxing gym at the age of 10, and began his amateur career at just 11; think what you were up to at that age compared to being in a Kazakh boxing gym.
In his early years, the world around him was chaotic. The Soviet Union was falling apart, and Kazakhstan became a fragile independent state in late 1991. Young Gennady had to deal with the tragic loss of not one but two of his older brothers, both being killed whilst serving for the Russian army, with the cause of deaths never being cleared up. Golovkin made a promise to honour his brothers with his boxing and went on to build a frankly incredible amateur record of 345 wins and just 5 defeats. As far as it is possible to find out, he was never dropped once across all of these contests. Asian Games, Junior Worlds, World Cup, World Championship, he won them all. At the 2004 Olympics, he made it all the way to the final but had to make do with a silver medal after a very contentious decision in a fight Golovkin seemed to control.
In 2006, he finally went pro, at the age of 24, fighting in Germany and quickly amassing a sea of stoppages without much coverage of his fights across other boxing markets. There were management issues; Gennady felt his promoter favoured stablemate and then-WBA Middleweight champion Felix Sturm, with Sturm using political sway and money to avoid GGG - a fight (and more than likely victory) which would have been huge for the latter’s early standing in the sport. Golovkin did eventually get a title shot, though it was for the interim WBA Middleweight title, in the Summer of 2010, as he traveled to Panama City, Panama for the opportunity to knock Milton Nunez out in just 58 seconds. Still unable to book a fight with the ‘proper’ WBA champ Sturm, he headed to the US to achieve his dream of headlining at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Once HBO Boxing was on board and the WBA had named him their full Middleweight champion, that dream was about to become a reality, many times over. Working with trainer Abel Sanchez in Big Bear, California, Golovkin’s fighting style evolved to become a potent mix of laser-like Eastern European amateur technique and American prizefighter offence, with a granite chin and very heavy hands. The brutal artistry of Gennady Golovkin in his pomp was soon on display to a wider audience. This was exemplified by his battering of an incredibly game Gabriel Rosado in January 2013, something he accomplished WITH THE FLU AND A FEVER, having been on a hospital gurney unsure whether he would be able to compete at all in the days prior. This was one of the first times the American audience knew that we were in the company of someone a bit special…
Golovkin’s name became increasingly used by fighters to build their profiles, without actually going on to face him, as he patiently waited for those largest challenges to appear. The most high-profile opponents of the time weren’t lining up to face him, as manager Tom Loeffler explained back in 2014…
"It’s easier to make fights for Wladimir Klitschko than it is for Golovkin…(He’s) got a major title and dates on HBO, which offers good money, but there’s still nothing but excuses from potential opponents."
Then there was Dmitry Pirog - one of the biggest ‘what if’s of modern boxing history. An outstanding fighter himself, Russia’s Pirog could so easily have been the great rival the young Golovkin craved in the middleweight scene when it was first announced that the pair had agreed on a deal for an HBO headliner. At the time, Pirog was the undefeated WBO Middleweight champion, having spectacularly stopped Daniel Jacobs in 2010 to claim the title. A back injury suffered in training for the Golovkin fight eventually canceled the highly-anticipated bout and prematurely ended Pirog’s career, whilst Triple G and the hardcore boxing fandom were left to wonder what might have been.
Gennady did eventually climb to the summit, but a potentially great feud with Pirog could have added so much depth to his legacy. Golovkin’s pay-per-view numbers - without Canelo as an opponent - have been somewhat modest at times, although from his starting point just becoming an HBO PPV headliner is some achievement.
Gennady did build up a resume of decisive wins as he dominated the 160-pound division in the coming years - Matt Macklin, Martin Murray, Willie Monroe Jr., David Lemieux, career welterweight Kell Brook…this was a GGG in his prime in fights which could not quite give him the greatness he desired. Some excellent fighters gave him varying levels of difficulty, however, those marquee bouts eluded him.
When he finally did start to get the bigger (and eventually biggest) fights, doubts lingered for some. He defeated a career-best version of Daniel Jacobs - who himself has a life story that has all the hallmarks of a Hollywood film - by unanimous decision for the unified Middleweight title in March 2017, but Jacobs and a few others questioned the result. Although it was a close fight, I can’t subscribe to that viewpoint. Triple G’s fierce reputation preceded him, so inevitably when a fight went the full 12 rounds this subconsciously discredited his efforts, as it felt like it did for some here.
Although the clamour for Golovkin-Canelo had been building up for years and talks had started and broken down periodically, after the Jacobs win that megafight was officially announced. Canelo had jumped around the weight divisions somewhat, picking up the WBC Middleweight title from Miguel Cotto in 2015 before relinquishing and dropping back down to Light Middleweight in 2016, and it did feel like he was delaying the inevitable Triple G fight, which a lot of fight fans clocked - as well as noting his six-month ban for testing positive for clenbuterol, something the Mexican blamed on eating contaminated meat. When it eventually did happen, in September 2017 at the T-Mobile Arena in Vegas, Golovkin had reached the age of 35 and was perhaps a few years away from his absolute prime.
On fight night though, with the eyes of the world on them, age did not seem to matter: Triple G appeared to win the fight relatively clearly. The contest was fought at the highest boxing skill level and has rightly been called a classic, thanks to the majestic abilities of both men. Golovkin’s career-defining moment though, the victory at the top of the boxing game he had waited all those years for, was snatched away from him when the cards were called. The loud boos ringing out from the largely pro-Mexican crowd when the lone Canelo-winning card and the draw result were read out by Michael Buffer (as opposed to cheers when GGG’s 115-113 judging was called) ably demonstrated the prevailing opinion that Gennady was robbed. The immediate reaction of other top boxing figures was clearly in favour of a GGG win, and when DAZN News re-scored the fight last year, everyone who took part crowned Golovkin as the winner. Gennady’s perfect pro record now included a draw.
That record would also feature a defeat following the rematch with Canelo in September 2018, and Golovkin would no longer be a middleweight champion, for the first time in more than eight years. In between the two fights, Alvarez served his suspension for failing two drug tests, delaying the rematch and adding an extra, darker dimension to the build of the contest. This was another fantastic fight though. A tighter affair than the first, which once again featured elite level boxing ability and durability from both, Canelo engaged considerably more this time, throwing and landing more, especially in terms of body shots, although Golovkin still landed more punches overall and boxed brilliantly at times on the back foot.
Canelo was awarded the decision by the slimmest of margins - 115-113 Canelo twice, and 114-114. It literally could not have been closer. I didn’t really have a huge problem with the result in this one per se, it could have gone either way, but you have to feel that 1-1 with the epic trilogy fight looming would have been a far fairer outcome. Gennady not taking a win across the two bouts was a tragedy.
Since the Canelo events, as Saul’s superstardom has shot further towards the stratosphere, Golovkin has been relatively quiet. He has switched trainers, won the IBF Middleweight title in a close bout with Sergiy Derevyanchenko, and looked in fantastic condition when he made easy work of overmatched mandatory Kamil Szeremeta behind closed doors in December.
What happens next in his career is still unclear. Canelo looks busy cleaning up a higher weight division, and he and trainer Eddy Reynoso have made it clear that a GGG trilogy fight will only be happening at Super Middleweight.
There has been discussion around a variety of Middleweight unification fights - with Charlo, Murata, or Demetrius Andrade - but nothing concrete. He is in a tricky spot for sure; although he holds the IBF title, and a win against Triple G would hugely enhance a fighter’s record, he does appear to be less central to the big fight debate than he has been for the best part of a decade. Perhaps he will fight Oscar De La Hoya, with the imminently returning 48-year-old Golden Boy claiming Gennady would be an “easy fight”…but I have my doubts that is on Triple G’s immediate agenda.
So should Gennady Golovkin be considered an all-time great, or was he indeed born too late? Although the latter is certainly true given the fights we could have seen, the former deserves more discussion, as does his wider legacy in the sport.
The man cannot help when he was born of course and is not in control of the judge’s decisions, but his skillset is absolutely elite. He has been instrumental in demonstrating that fighters from former Eastern bloc countries can become established headliners in the American market. Despite being avoided like the plague and therefore missing out on the opponents to help him build a legendary resume, this is a man who has done more than enough to live up to the hype which swirled around him at the beginning of the last decade.
On the flip side, perhaps to be truly validated as one of the all-time greats then moving up or down in weight for megafights with some of the era’s biggest names could have pushed him up to that rarefied air - something which Canelo has done masterfully in recent years. Fights against the likes of Floyd Mayweather, Carl Froch, and Andre Ward were either rumoured or seriously discussed at different stages over the last decade, but nothing ever came too close to fruition. Moving up to Super Middleweight over the next year to defeat Alvarez would certainly guarantee him as an undisputed ATG, but that seems unlikely at this juncture.
Timing, in boxing as in life, is everything. Gennady Golovkin spent his early career being mismanaged in Europe, and for large parts of his US stint, he has been searching for the right dance partner, a victim of the politics and lack of autonomous governance within boxing. He certainly hasn’t competed in an era where his division has been overflowing with outstanding fighters hovering around the middle boxing weights or moved up the divisions in rivalries, as was the case in the 1980s when ‘The Four Kings’ had so many classic encounters. He wasn’t around to be a part of the Middleweight scene of the 1990s and early 2000s either, but what fascinating clashes of style those contests would have thrown up if he had been if he could have faced Hopkins, Toney or Roy Jones Jr.
In the end, the fact that he wasn’t able to make the elite fights at the right points of his career might end up meaning he falls agonisingly short of all-time great status in many historian’s eyes, which is painful for me to write as a huge GGG fan. He is likely to be considered a great middleweight no matter what though, one who could have competed in any era, and he should have a victory against a guaranteed future all-time great in Canelo - and who knows, that rivalry might not be over yet. I would have him on the all-time list even if I can understand why some wouldn’t - to achieve what he has done in the sport from his starting point is pretty spectacular, whatever the future holds.
Through a combination of sheer talent and unrelenting determination, he has climbed to the peak of the sport, with his “big drama show” fights always being events on the boxing calendar. He hasn’t lowered himself with too much controversy, whether personal or PED-related (unlike some of the other top stars of this era), and has been an excellent ambassador for an oft-maligned sport…and he has still never been knocked down in his entire boxing career.
His career peak glory might have been snatched away from him by a boxing ecosystem that doesn’t always force the best to fight the best, but any fight fan worth their salt should be grateful that we still have Triple G campaigning in the sport. More time may need to pass after he hangs up the gloves before it can be generally acknowledged just how good he is. All-time great or not though, fighters like Gennady Golovkin don’t come around that often, in any generation.
MORE FROM DOUBLE DUTCH BOXING…
Could this be Britain's greatest ever boxer?
Boxing's chaos theory: Teofimo, purse bids and the fundamental disorder at the heart of the sport
Don't believe the hype? Examining the concept of the hype job in boxing
THE BOXING AGENDA
Quick thoughts on the best, worst and most confusing from the boxing newswire…
“What next for Tyson Fury? We need to get him out - whether these cowboys get the job done, which I don’t think they’re gonna do. What have they signed? They’ve signed nothing in my eyes. They’ve got no date, no venue, no nothing. Tyson needs to fight twice this year, with or without AJ.” So said John Fury, uncle of Tyson, recently, before floating the theory that Anthony Joshua’s camp was dragging their heels because they didn’t plan on going through with the fight. Will Tyson, as John suggested, be looking to move on to a different opponent next? Or are these further mind game tactics from the Fury camp? Eddie Hearn has stated that the fight, venue, and date will be confirmed within a matter of days. All we know for sure is that yet another DDB newsletter goes out before any official confirmation…
Anthony Yarde. Daniel Dubois. Now Willy Hutchinson. Late March saw another of the Frank Warren stable’s top remaining prospects suffer a significant high-profile defeat in a fight in which the Commonwealth belt was on the line, as the highly-rated ‘Hurricane’ was stopped in spectacular fashion by Lennox Clarke in the fifth round of their Super Middleweight contest. At just 22 years old, the benefit of hindsight shows that Hutchinson was pushed into a tough bout too early as Frank Warren was swept along with proclamations that this was “the new Joe Calzaghe”, but this was still a huge shock result - most people (myself included) thought Willy would win decisively. Clarke did a great job and took his opportunity, and clearly was very undervalued. The question remains though around whether prospects being risked with running before they can necessarily walk is a good strategy for Warren and Queensberry Promotions. It does make for interesting fights though…
Isn’t it funny how a change in trainers can turn a fight from not very interesting to lowkey fascinating? When it was first announced, I wasn’t hugely fussed about Derek Chisora and Joseph Parker’s impending clash, especially when what felt like a far-from-elite bout was confirmed as a Sky Sports pay-per-view headliner. This was despite my man Dmitry Bivol defending his WBA Light Heavyweight title on the undercard, and the fact that I was slightly surprised the fight was even going ahead thanks to Parker’s courtroom headlines in New Zealand. Joseph adding Andy Lee as his new head coach was a bit of a surprise, becoming the former middleweight champion’s first major lead assignment, and then suddenly the legendary Buddy McGirt came out of nowhere to take the reins of team Chisora. How much can Chisora really learn at this stage of his career? What will Lee, prominent in the Fury camp for his domination of Deontay Wilder last February, bring to the table for a possibly declining Parker? I absolutely do not know, but I am definitely here for it and ready to find out…
THE NEXT ROUND
A far-from-exhaustive rundown of events worth looking out for on the boxing calendar…
10th April 2021
Conor Benn vs Samuel Vargas
Promoter: Matchroom/TV: Sky Sports (UK); DAZN (US and other territories)
Matchroom returns to the bubble after the jaunt to Gibraltar for a card headlined by ever-improving welterweight Conor Benn, who takes a fairly sizeable step up fight against Samuel Vargas - who tends to only lose to top-level opposition. But how much does Vargas have left? This is either more astute matchmaking or a big risk for ‘The Destroyer’ to take on. If Conor has the potential to be considered at world level, then the thinking is that this should just be a stepping stone, but Vargas has only been stopped by really great fighters (Errol Spence, Danny Garcia, Vergil Ortiz). Although obviously he would have had fewer opportunities if he was not Nigel’s son, Conor is an engaging figure who has progressed rapidly and has the name value to land really big fights - he seems to fancy either Amir Khan or Kell Brook next - if he keeps on winning.
17th April 2021
Jake Paul vs Ben Askren
Promoter: Triller/TV: FITE TV pay-per-view
Quite possibly the most bonkers mainstream boxing PPV of all time, even more than the last Triller Fight Club event. So we have YouTuber Jake Paul (2-0) fighting former UFC fighter Ben Askren in the main event; 44-year-old Steve Cunningham, who last fought in 2017, against one-time UFC Heavyweight champ Frank Mir in the latter’s pro boxing debut; nightclub magnate Joe Fournier taking on reggaeton musician Reykon, who has also never boxed professionally; and then, almost out of place, a fight between long-term boxing pros when former world champ Regis Prograis clashes with Ivan Redkach. There will also be performances from Justin Bieber, The Black Keys, Major Lazer and more. Oh, and Snoop Dogg and supermodel Taylor Hill will be part of the commentary team. The boxing establishment does not know how to deal with this, but it’s certainly attention-grabbing. The buy rate will be fascinating, and tell us much more about the long-term sustainability of Triller’s style of boxing event - can this match or even come close to the incredible pay-per-view revenue numbers generated by Tyson vs Jones last year?
////
Demetrius Andrade vs Liam Williams
Promoter: Matchroom/TV: DAZN
It feels like this one has been on the slate for ages, but the much-improved Welshman Williams finally gets his crack at WBO Middleweight champ Andrade in an intriguing contest. Although Andrade is clearly a hugely talented fighter and a long-reigning two-weight world champion, he doesn’t have too many great wins on his record so far, with his potentially biggest fight against Billy Joe Saunders cancelled due to the latter failing a drug test in 2018. Williams meanwhile has been on a bit of a tear since moving up to middleweight against generally lower-level opposition. Williams is supremely confident, whilst most outside of the UK have dismissed his chances against a fighter in Andrade who is considered to have elite skills. Has Andrade already been looking past his mandatory? It feels nicely poised, but Williams will have to produce a career-best performance to have any chance of victory.