This. and specially the Canelo bouts. People act like there is NO POSSIBLE CASE TO BE DONE for Canelo to win at least more than 3 rounds in their first fight, the second one doesn't get the same driding treatment but it still bothers me.
Of course Cotto who stared at 140 ducked him. GGG destroys him , thats why he wanted that fight so bad. He loved easy , no risk fights. Note how no other MW were calling Cotto out. Cotto saw an opportunity to beat a frail old one legged Martinez and took it. Thats it. He was never a MW or had any intention of being one. Imagine Janibek calling out Conner Benn and being pound of himself cos Benn ducked. Same energy. GGG had Andre Ward , Callum Smith , Charlo fights offered to him and refused. He dropped a belt to dodge Lara and another belt to doge Falco. When Canelo fight was postponed he dragged Vanes up from 154 and out of a 2 year retirement on 4 weeks notice despite better guys offering to step in.
Canelo definitely did. Just because he fought him when he showed signs of slippage and age doesn’t mean he didn’t duck him prior. He dropped his belt rather than fight him and Canelo has always been a belt guy.
George more or less summed it up to the best of my knowledge. When fights are repeatedly not coming off for a fighter, it's just as likely that the fighter and/or his management are hard to deal or negotiate reasonably with, as that he's being avoided. Golovkin was just poorly managed by and large imo. It's not as though the other highly rated ex-Soviets like Usyk, Lomachenko or Kovalev struggled to get fights in the same way when they were at least as formidable as Golovkin (Usyk and Loma moreso imo). Once he'd turned pro he only really needed to adjust to the longer distance and should have been moved much quicker as the above and the likes of Arbachakov, Nazarov and Tszyu were to be fighting for a belt after a relative handful of fights. That way he would've been in the mix with Pavlik, the younger Martinez etc or looking to make a bang at 168 in the late 2000s rather than treading water til the mid 2010s. Cotto was the one who most openly wanted no part of Golovkin after the rather shameless lineal belt-grab against the corpse of Martinez, and Golovkin was genuinely cheated in that instance. He was clearly the major threat to a very weak champion by that point albeit having put himself in the right position years too late and having to contend with Alvarez by that point having the weight of the industrial promotional engine behind him. Sturm had long proven himself a milking splinter titleist and was never likely to want to unify or take risks after the DLH fiasco and being partially exposed by Castillejo of all people. Froch, Saunders, Eubank etc George already covered. Froch being old and virtually retired and not the one needing to prove anything or make concessions at that point in his career. Eubank and Saunders both being mediocre imo anyway and not really significant threats to a genuinely very good fighter like Golovkin. Ward had already cleared the house at 168 quite impressively despite not being a draw himself and a pain in the arse as a personality. Beaten better fighters and looked impressive doing so. Stepping up to light heavy to fight Kovalev who was looking as similarly relatively imposing as Golovkin but a naturally bigger and harder punching man can hardly be described as taking the easy way out. And I've no great liking for Ward either. It would've pleased me to see Golovkin hand him a beating tbh, but that was a very unlikely scenario at best. Golovkin would've lost that fight quite handily for me.
I do tend to think that Alvarez was a bit less keen a couple of years earlier than when he did eventually fight Golovkin. He'd been brought abruptly down to earth by Mayweather not long prior and had struggled with both Lara and Cotto and was still refining his game somewhat. It's easy to forget that he was viewed at the time by a lot of serious observers as a bit of an overrated, protected hack and not the decent fighter he developed into. The Golovkin rematch where he slipped and countered more aggressively on the front foot was the first time I watched him and was genuinely impressed tbh. Tempered of course by him being a roiding cheat who has always held an unfair psychological edge over opponents knowing that all he had to do was last the rounds to win on the cards (having an iron chin) whether it was deserved or not.
Always makes me laugh when people say Froch ducked GGG. Man fought all the absolute beasts at 168 for years but then decides a less proven man a weight class below him is too much? I honestly can't see how a man who was physically backed up by Jacobs and Canelo could just walk through him as the GGG fanatics suggest. Froch is massively underrated on this forum. As tin said, the reality is that, as much as some ducked him, GGG was also hard to deal with when making bouts - he seemed entitled to big events whilst not understanding the position he was in regarding his promotability. By the time he started actually self promoting himself properly for any length of time he was getting close to the 'past prime' portion of his career. That's not even mentioning the horrendous business decisions like signing with a promotion which had a stake in from Sturm himself. Him and his team were his own worse enemies.
Golovkin has famously been easy to deal with when making fights. His team even paid Jacobs more than he was entitled to for a mandatory shot.
Later we found out why Geale laid his belt down and ran for the hills. Everybody knew what was coming if they fought GGG
Martirosyan had been in a training camp but his fight was canceled. Also, Canelo got suspended for Clenbuteral use, so it was a keep busy fight/ title defense. Martirosyan was a terrific fighter as well. Golovkin was 36 by then and didn't want to waste his likely last prime fight on an animal like Derevyanchenko. Good thing he didn't. Martirosyan was a near elite junior middleweight.
I remember back when the Papke thing was being discussed on HBO and Max Kellerman said to Golovkin "Papke has not mentioned publicly that he has turned you down but he has turned you down?" and Golovkin said ''I say I box I told him I box and I respect box but does he box? Does he just say that?" and Abel Sanchez stepped in and forcefully said "PAP-KEY? How about PAP-SMEAR!" and the audience went wild. But if you read back those comments, nobody actually confirms or denies that they were privately turned down in the first place. It makes me wonder if that wasn't a deliberately misleading thing.
Not true. Vanes had been on the couch for 2 years and never even fought at 160 when he was active. One body wouldn't sanction the contest. One of the most shameful hand picked opponents ever. A guy who pulls a stunt like thet is showing he has no interest in taking risks or challenging himself.