Anybody still feel Golovkin vs. Pirog in 2012 would have been 50-50?

I can't see that. We never really saw Pirog hurt. Slightly once by a Maciel body shot (and yes Golovkin has devastating body punches) but a) Maciel is a monstrous body puncher himself (albeit best suited to 154) and b) Pirog was, as noted, in rough shape physically that night.

If welterweight Brook can manage to never go down, and if walking heavy bags Lemieux and Stevens can each make it eight, I don't see Pirog (whose pure boxing skill is at least in the same neighborhood as Golovkin's if not right on par...light-years beyond those guys') getting stopped.

 

Very good point. He also may have seen in Pirog a kindred spirit and trailblazer in the sense that Pirog, while a very good and moderately successful amateur, never received the sort of mollycoddling attention that some get with the Russian national team playing favorites. Pirog didn't get the big international tourney opportunities that some do, just as Kovalev didn't, and yet was poised to break into the American market and become a global commodity in the pros before his back gave out.

Pirog was largely self-taught (much like another - briefly - ultra-hyped European middleweight prospect that came up around the same time: Grzegorz Proksa. Remember him???) and was an outsider in terms of the politics of the country's AM boxing scene. He forged his own path via sheer will, just as Kovalev would later do.

Both are notably free as well of some of the usual stylistic trappings (good habits and bad) of the Russian boxing program.

 

Problem is 2012 GGG was still only a year removed from that forgettable Ouma performance.

Yes he was sick but still. He went life and death with tiny half-shot Ouma.

Pirog is empirically a class above Ouma in every department (except workrate, but Pirog's was very steady for a sharpshooter) and was 5" taller and not a natural welter.

Pirog with like 6 vertebrae falling out looked better versus Maciel (a natural world class junior middle in his prime) than Golovkin did with a case of the sniffles versus Ouma (a natural world class welter past his prime)

 

One guy's opinion. Most scholars of the sport agree that Hopkins' best days were ahead of him at that point.

 

Hey, nicely written post, eleven months ago me.

 

On the other hand when has Golovkin ever seen anything quite like that?

Guys have come straight at him (Lemieux, Stevens, Ouma) and guys have brought slick top shelf defensive skill (Monroe, Jacobs) but when did he ever see a seamless hybridization of both? He could be conceivably flabbergasted.

 

Kassim wasn't.

 

True and when he returned he got a "lifetime achievement" gift decision over C-level Rahman Yusubov.