Who is greater P4P George Foreman or Gennady Golovkin?

Been a little while since we went to war with either fighter so thought of this

 

You sure know how to make contentious threads don't you @OddR

To answer your question, Golovkin has the better P4P case because his success was built more on skill than physical advantages. He was a career middleweight with one of the best jabs ever, elite pressure, and great fundamentals, and he beat guys like Jacobs who were naturally bigger. Foreman was dominant, but a lot of his effectiveness, especially in his first career, came from being bigger, stronger, and more powerful than most heavyweights he fought. His wins over Frazier and Norton are great historically, but from a pure pound-for-pound standpoint Golovkin’s skillset translates better independent of size, which is what P4P is supposed to measure.

 

You haven't talked too much about resume here to my slight surprise but I take you give GGG a significant edge there too?

 

Yeah Canelo is the best fighter either has fought P4P and I though Golovkin beat him clearly in their first fight and arguably beat him in the second as well. Even disregarding that fight, which many people here will, Golovkin beat better fighters P4P then Foreman and didn't have a size advantage over them which should rank him higher.

 

The idea of p4p was created to circumvent a fighter like George Foreman. So George Foreman. Separate from that I would still favor George overall. GGG, despite being the best of his era, never got that signature win that would catapult him up a level. Foreman has a couple of great wins and a few good ones. On the other end of the p4p idea, If you shrunk George down to GGG size, then Gennady would be better by a lot.

 

Easily Golovkin.

Just on the eye test, Golovkin is a textbook fighter that does everything right.

Foreman's game is absolutely full of holes and he relied heavily on being bigger and tougher than his contemporaries in the 70s, and he picked his opponents well in his comeback tour.

If you had a young boxer wondering whether he should try emulate Foreman or Golovkin, you'd be crazy to tell him to fight like Foreman.

Furthermore: Golovkin had a superlative record at middleweight, a traditionally tougher division than heavyweight. The most defences in MW history. He was kind of a smallish middleweight whereas Foreman was a particularly large heavy especially in the 70s. Golovkin was never outclassed, whereas we can't say that for Foreman against Ali for instance. OK, so Ali is an outlier fighter himself. But Foreman was outclassed against Young again. Dropped against Lyle. GGG doesn't know what a KD is.

Foreman did well in his comeback career, but it was often against picked opponents that would suit him. Even then he sometimes got his ass beat + a lucky decision, like against Schultz. I don't really want to hold his second career against him, but if he's going to get acclaim for it (rightly so) then we also need to be able to examine his shortcomings.

Foreman could be outboxed and he didn't do too well against guys that moved on him and tried to use angles and boxing skills instead of slugging. Golovkin fared equally well against both types.

 

That kind of is the P4P idea though

 

Others base it on what they did in the division rather than this. It depends who you ask.

TBF I find it a slightly flawed concept to shrink everyone down in size or make everyone the same size.

 

I agree it is a flawed concept. Because a Golovkin sized Foreman would be a lot faster and have better reactions than he did at heavy. How much faster and better? We don't know. A Foreman sized Golovkin would be keeping the hospitals full of customers. I shudder to think what a 220ish GGG would do to people. So yeah, it is flawed. But it's also fun which is why we do these.

 

Sure I guess there is a element of that. I just think if you take away size then it's pretty much changing the fighter so for me it's easier to compare what they did relativity in there own weight class.

 

I don't view it close when I say Foreman. Not close at all. Golovkin did not take the risks necessary. For that, he gets to come through without so much the loss column but he doesn't get the win column either, which is the lion's share of the reasoning that he isn't close.

 

Boxed Ears still hasn't lost his ironic sense of humour

 

Ran from Cotto. You've got to at least admit that. Foreman faced his Cotto (Briggs) and he may have lost officially, but, unlike Golovokolin, it won him the hearts of the fans finally. Golovkin never got that shining moment. None of us can disagree with that.

 

This is an interesting question. From an ATG point of view it has to be Triple G. He had almost 20 middleweight title defenses while George did not have much success as a titleholder and wasn't much of a champion. He went 3-1 over the course of two championship reigns.

Head to head, which is what the OP asks about, is much closer. George was an absolute wrecking ball in the ring in both his first and second careers. He finished with 68 knockouts and just 8 decision victories among his 76 wins. He still had a great punch into his 40s. A lot of the same things can be said about Golovkin. He had a very high knockout percentage and carried his power into his 40s.

Head to head, I am going with George. Officially, Triple G failed in three attempts against the one great fighter he fought while George has a few wins better than Gennady's best victory.