Would Pirog have derailed the GGG hypetrain?

Canelo was giving Jacobs something of a schooling early on, but he experienced his usual mid-rounds sag, it had gotten close by the fight's end. Did Canelo look like a cleverer boxer in defeating Jacobs than Golovkin had? Sure, certainly in the rounds he won. But the overall margin of victory was about the same, give or take a couple rounds on one out of the three official scorecards.


Anyway, the approximately similar margins of victory Golovkin and Canelo enjoyed over Jacobs weren't even the crux of the discussion those fellas were having – the point the one fella was making, however sound or unsound, is that Pirog was too much a cut above to be pulled into close bouts with his contemporaries.

This is a thread about Dmitry Pirog, The Grandmaster. The Canelo-Golovkin thing has been flogged to death in countless threads already, and you've been at the center of most of them. Does this thread need to become another? Could you not just have passed over his minor aside? Was it essential to fire up the Canelo-Golovkin saga in this thread just for the sake of semantics?

I don't mind a derail per se, but this Canelo-Golovkin fanbase spat been played out (at least until they inevitably fight again). It's a lame argument over two B+ fighters. Neither one is that good, all things considered. If you all have to go crazy, at least do it over great fighters.


Now, back to Dmitry Pirog?

 

You suggested that Canelo and GGG had about the same level of ease in defeating Jacobs. That is of course patently untrue. Canelo had a much easier time schooling and dispatching of Jacobs than GGG did. Like you said, Canelo was giving Jacobs something of a schooling early on. But it wasn't just early on, it wasn't until about the 6th or 7th round that Jacobs arguably even won a round.

You can't complain about another Canelo vs GGG discussion being fired up when it was your misleading statement that caused that. I'm just calling you out by pointing out that Canelo defeated Jacobs much more comfortably than GGG defeated Jacobs. It wasn't just the final margin of the judges, it was the punch stats, where Jacobs landed at 12% higher connect % vs GGG than he did vs Canelo. And according to Compubox, Canelo also landed at a higher connect % vs Jacobs than GGG did. Then you look at how many people thought Jacobs beat GGG (a lot) vs how many peole thought Jacobs beat Canelo (almost nobody).

If we're going to use press scores and polls in regard to Canelo GGG 1, which many GGG fans routinely do, then we have to do the same with GGG vs Jacobs and Canelo vs Jacobs. In practically every conceivable area (official judges, polls, press scoring, compubox, etc) Canelo has a significant advantage over GGG in how his fight went with Jacobs. Now, on the other hand, GGG has something vs Jacobs that Canelo doesn't have : a knockdown. But it's still factually incorrect to suggest in any way shape or form that GGG and Canelo had about the same level of ease in defeating Jacobs. Canelo schooled and aside from some brief comeback moments by Jacobs, easily outclassed and pretty much dominated Jacobs. There was no doubt whatsoever on who won that. On the other hand, GGG Jacobs was seen as a could-go-either-way decision. GGG essentially went life or death with Jacobs whereas Canelo cruised to victory easily.

 

What I said is that the margin of victory was about the same. Which is, of course, patently true.

Moreover, I civilly requested that you might knock the Canelo-Golovkin caca that nobody particularly cares about on the head just for this one thread. Instead, you responded with three paragraphs that I'm not going to read beyond the first two sentences.


I will again ask you civilly to post about Dmitry Pirog in the Dmitry Pirog thread, bearing in mind that you have had ample opportunity to discuss Canelo-Golovkin and related matters in dozens of prior threads, or else give it a miss.

Kindly consider honoring the request. Or don't. It's up to you.

 

I was engaged in an exchange with ShovelHook. You quoted me and pointed out that the final margins of the offical judges were similar, which I don't deny. ShovelHook was suggesting that Canelo and GGG had about the same level of ease in defeating Jacobs, to which I responded to. You then said that Canelo "experienced his usual mid-rounds sag", and that it became close by the end, give or take a couple of rounds. I didn't see any mid-round sag, I mean he took his foot off the gas pedal here and there.

I pointed out that those close final totals margins include a knockdown which was an automatic 10-8 round for GGG. Without the automatic 10-8 for a flash knockdown then the final margins would have been more significantly in Canelo's favor and they wouldn't be seen as close. A flash knockdown swinging a round to a 10-8 does not represent the overall 3:00 of a round where actual closeness of a match is measured. By you ignoring that the final margins were only so close due to a flash knockdown you ignore what actually happened throughout each bout where one was a close life or death battle while the other was a master class schooling.

I appreciate your civil request to post about Dmitry Pirog but I don't understand why you object or are bothered by side conversations going on in a topic. I'm happy to tak about Pirog but I would civilly request you to not act like GGG vs Jacobs and Canelo vs Jacobs were about the same level of actual closeness.

 

A completely played out one which wasn't even the crux of the exchange in which ShovelHook and Zulawksi (as in Andrzej?) were engaged.


Don't be that guy, man. Just be a guy.

 

I don't think it was a played out discussion at all. While Canelo / GGG fan arguments are very common around here, the comparison between how close Canelo vs Jacobs was compared to GGG vs Jacobs is a bit of an unexplored area. Over time I've seen plenty of posters get away with little comments here and there suggesting that the two bouts were about the same level of closeness. Many times I've seen these kind of comments and glossed over them so to not start another Canelo GGG argument. It's actually getting to the point where because no one is calling out these kinds of comments, it's becoming like an accepted thing that GGG Jacobs was about as close as Canelo Jacobs. So I have glossed over these kinds of comments before, but when a guy doubles down on it and claims out of the blue that both bouts were 7-5 but GGG had a knockdown, that's an attempt to go even one step further and suggest that GGG defeated Jacobs more soundly and decisively than Canelo did which is patently absurd. That's why I responded. Enough is enough. Trying to stretch the truth more and more to make GGG appear to be on the same level as Canelo is so played out it's not even funny.

 

It's just another extension of the Canelo-GGG fanbase quarrel. But if you really want to carry it on here, I can't silence you, nor would I wish to forcibly do so. I was just making a request of you, for the sake of letting a potentially good thread breathe.

 

In case anybody else normally just glosses over shadow111's posts, I made them a bit easier to read.

 

I will happily honor your requset if you will honor my request of admitting that Canelo Jacobs was nowhere near as close as GGG Jacobs. You citing the final judges scores as proof of absolute closeness is like me citing the Adalaide Byrd 118-110 card in Canelo GGG 1 as proof that Canelo GGG was a blowout lol.

 

Please understand. I'm not trying to change your opinion (though you now seem to be trying to change mine). I was just hoping you might be a man of reason and see my point about how this whole Canelo-Golovkin thing has been flogged enough that it doesn't need to be pursued in a thread about a guy who is largely forgotten and isn't often discussed.

I see that I was relieving myself in the wind, though. Carry on.

 

But it's not unrelated to answering the question of the topic. If to answer the question of would Pirog have derailed the GGG hypetrain you are using other matches as a means to answer that question, then we need to go in depth as to what happened when GGG fought Jacobs. I mean that's a critical piece of the puzzle to determining what would have happened if Pirog had fought GGG.

 

You were ploughing the Canelo-Golovkin furrow – i.e. 'Canelo beat Jacobs better than Golovkin did' – not the Pirog-Jacobs-Golovkin triangle theory furrow. You made no mention of Dmitry Pirog until post #64, after I appealed to the better angels of your nature.

I hope you'll forgive my scepticism as to your intent to enrich the Dmitry Pirog discussion by obliquely extracting a Canelo-Golovkin argument from it.

This bears repeating;

Anyway,

In fairness to yourself, you are not the only guy on this forum who struggles to see reason. Speaking of which, I'm going to head over to that Usyk-Ward thread. If I'm going to relieve myself in the wind again, I might as well freshen up the topic. I shall hinder you no more.

Enjoy.

 

Jacobs isn't considered chinny know is he? That's because he isn't, he is also cancer free. Also if Golovkin didn't KO Pirog it wouldn't have changed much, he would have had a KO streak of 10 going into the fight then after the Pirog fight he would have an additional KO streak of 12. He would still be considered a huge puncher. He would have a title defense record of 20 with 17 by KO instead of 18 by KO. His current record would be 40-1-1 (34) instead of (35). I know one thing, if GGG KOED Pirog, the haters would call Pirog a bum that for sure. Also all evidence leads to GGG being the better fighter not just the comparisons, Golovkin made 20 defenses 18 by KO. How many defenses did Pirog make? Who did he beat? A young sick Jacobs that's about it. You can't compare the two. He has a better resume 10 fold . I would put my money on the proven fighter.

 

Jacobs said recently in a interview that the GGG fight was a tougher fight than the Canelo fight. He said he was a better version of himself vs GGG also.

 

What fighters say about their fights has to be taken with a grain of salt. I mean, lets not forget Broner said he beat Pacquiao.

There could be some truth to Jacobs saying that though, in the sense that his match with GGG may have been more grueling for him or more of a "tougher" fight than when he fought Canelo. For one, he was knocked down by GGG. It was definitely more of a life or death war than when he fought Canelo. Jacobs just got so outclassed by Canelo it was more of a master class schooling rather than a tough slugfest, but was he beat up as much as he was vs GGG? Possibly not. So I think there's some truth to what Jacobs is saying, his fight with GGG may well have been tougher. But tougher doesn't necessarily mean closer.

As to him saying he was a better version of himself vs GGG, I think that has to do with the weight excuse. He made the same excuses for why he struggled vs Derevyanchenko as well due to him making 160. I think there is some truth to that though, Jacobs was always big for 160 that perhaps as time went on it became more and more difficult to make 160, so he would have been better at 160 years earlier. I can buy that, but it still comes off as an excuse. One thing we do know is that he was a better version of himself vs Canelo than he was vs Derevyanchenko because vs Derevyanchenko he successfully made weight the same day weigh-in whereas he ignored it vs Canelo. And if a worse more weight drained version of himself was able to defeat Derevyanchenko, a solid highly ranked prime Middleweight who went on to coming close to beating GGG, then he was obviously still quite effective at 160 weight drained or not. And lets not forget that plenty of fans are now claiming that Canelo was draining himself to make 160 as well and is a much better fighter at 168.