A Fair And Balanced Аssessment Of The Frequently Belittled Resume Of Gennady Golovkin

Time and time again I see the same refrain out of GGG's copious number of detractors, its the tired ass incredibly flawed and very inaccurate assessment of GGG's resume. They repeatedly say all GGG has fought are "bums" or "losers" or "tin cans" as justifications for their numerous attempts to denigrate him and delegitimize him. Has it ever dawned on the many GGG detractors that they are repeatedly making themselves look somewhat buffoonish and exposing the lack of knowledge they have pertaining to fighters who exist outside of their narrow wheelhouse of expertise. I'm sure its not a coincidence that the majority of his detractors happen to be Floyd fans, Cotto fans, Canelo fans or Ward fans. All trying their best to convince themselves and others how unproven and average GGG is and how easy he is to outbox, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. The reality is the only fighter out of the ones I mentioned earlier that has a legitimate chance to beat GGG is Andre Ward. Floyd, Miguel and Canelo have next to no chance whatsoever against Gennady. So I'm going to attempt shed a little light on GGG's oft disparaged record and explain to all of you why its actually a lot more impressive than many of you seem to think it is.

GGG's Notable Opponents
Sergey Khomitsky Is a rarely talked about but very impressive TKO win by GGG, GGG was the first man to stop Khomitsky and since that stoppage Khomitsky has gone on to be the first man to drop hard and to nearly stop Martin Murray in their first meeting and outbox Martin Murray in the rematch and get robbed on the cards. Granted he's not the hardest to outbox, he's still a damn solid puncher who's just in the past 2 years ruined the undefeated records of Brit prospects Frank Buglioni and Adam Etches both by KO as well as drawing with Nick Blackwell. GGG made him take a knee and basically quit in 5 when he was young and he's only lost by stoppage twice since, once against Khurtsidze, when he quit in his corner, but Khurtsidze is a very underrated fighter who more of you should know about, and the other was a bull**** stoppage against Stieglitz when his corner had difficulty removing loose tape, of all things, coincidentally stopped right after Khomitsky had dropped Robert.

Kassim Ouma Is a far more solid opponent than most people seem to think he is, who also happens to have a pretty damn good chin. Ouma is as awkward as they come, with a style that is hard to look good against, he has point wins over Rubio, Jantuah, Bunema, Verno Phillips, Candelo and Sechew Powell all of whom were solid wins. Ouma then started to lag later on and lost on points quite a few times to Karmazin, Jermain Taylor, Roman, Bundrage, Rosado and Martirosyan. The Martirosyan loss was debatable, it was a close contest that could have easily been scored for Ouma, in which Ouma dropped Vanes for the first time in his career. The loss to K9 is also questionable, it could been a draw or a close win for Ouma, same goes for the SD loss to Roman. Most of these are pretty solid opponents and fairly heavy handed yet none came close to KOing him. GGG beat him into a Hospital stay and basically ended his career.

Grzegorz Proksa Isn't close to the best opponent GGG has ever faced, but he had a couple of decent wins on his resume and 1 loss pre GGG, his sole loss came at the hands of Kerry Hope in a very close Majority Decision, he later avenged it by stopping Hope in the 8th round. His other notable win was his stoppage victory over Sebastian Sylvester of Germany something Geale and Sturm had been unable to accomplish. GGG dropped him 3 times and stopped him in 5. Basically ruined him as a fighter and destroyed his chin.

Gabriel Rosado While he isn't the best fighter in the world and has lost to many subpar opponents he learned on the job and got better the further he got into his career. This one is an important win to use as a point of comparison Gabe's victory over Jesus Soto Karass, the man who KO'd Andre Berto, Maidana went to war with him and it took him 8 rounds to stop him, then One Time Keith Thurman fought Soto Karass and it took him 9 whole rounds to stop him, both of these matches were post Rosado's victory over JSK. Gabe walked right through Soto Karass effortlessly brutally beating him like a rag doll causing Steve Smoger off all refs to stop the match mid way through the 5th round. Then Gabe badly shook up Quillin and gave him all that he could handle with Peter in full retreat mode, and if it had been allowed to continue might have scored the upset. He took the 0 of J'Leon Love dropping him once, yet he was robbed of the victory on the scorecards, poetically it was ruled a NC due to a positive drug test by Love. Gabe also has a KO victory over Vera in BKB. Gabe is a tough as hell always game competitor and GGG annihilated him, basically ripping his face off all while GGG had the flu. Recently he beat Joshua Clottey who'd been looking impressive in recent matches, in basically a shutout performance.

Matthew Macklin A solid contender who went 12 rounds with Felix Sturm and won 7-5 and was robbed of the decision and when he fought Martinez he put up a far stiffer challenge than many thought he would. He came back and stopped Alcine in one round, something prospect Julian Williams was incapable of accomplishing. Would still be a solid challenge for most Junior Middleweights moving up. His 3 other TKO and KO losses on Macklin's record came 10 rounds or later into the fights, yet Gennady Golovkin sliced through him like a hot knife through butter in 3.

Nobuhiro Ishida Far from the most skilled boxer in the world but had very solid chin, he has a SD loss against Rigoberto Alvarez, which should have been a win that he was robbed of, he also went the distance with Paul Williams, and Dmitry Pirog not going down once and of course he notoriously KO1 James Kirkland. He was knocked unconscious and partially out of the ring by GGG in 3. Since that match he moved all the way up to HW and won two and lost to close and retired.


Curtis Stevens While Curtis isn't the hardest guy in the world to outbox, his power is very real, Andre Dirrell was so afraid of his power he basically ran a marathon trying to avoid his shots, he KO1 and took the 0 of Piotr Wilczewski, Abraham couldn't stop him, and James Degale couldn't either, in fact he barely scraped by winning a very close MD over him. He has KO1 wins over Elvin Ayala and Saul Roman, both stopped quicker by him than by Lemieux or Martinez, recently Derevyanchenko couldn't even stop an old shot Ayala. Since the loss to GGG, he went on to stop Tureano Johnson in the 10th round of a war taking his 0 as well. GGG handled him and his power with ease.

Osumanu Adama Not a great win on paper but the method of the win was impressive nonetheless, Adama is a hard to look good against fighter, who was coming off of giving Daniel Geale everything he could handle losing in a closer than the scores reflect match. He also ad a close match against Don George when he was undefeated, which was also closer than the scores indicate. He'd never been stopped, GGG dropped him 3 times and stopped him in 7.

Daniel Geale On paper one of GGG best wins, he has wins over Anthony Mundine, Sebastian Sylvester, took the 0 of Daniel Dawson who almost KO'd Austin Trout, Felix Sturm, Osumanu Adama, Roman Karmazin, Geard Ajekovic, and was somewhat robbed against Darren Barker. While Geale has never had the most amazing chin, no one had ever come close to stopping him, but GGG did with absolute ease and he didn't need to drain him to borderline catatonia and headbutt the **** out of him to do it.

 

Marco Antonio Rubio As solid a journeyman as you're going to get, he has KO wins over Rigoberto Alvarez, David Lemieux, Domenico Spada, Jorge Cota, stopped Baldomir quicker than Canelo, went to war with and should have got the win over Chavez Jr. or at the very least a draw, and was never put down by Kelly Pavlik, his corner pulled him out because they got sick of seeing him eat bombs all night from the incredibly heavy handed Pavlik. So the guy who'd only been properly stopped once when he was a kid by the hard hitting Jantuah, tasted GGG's power and basically quit, he said f*** this, it isn't worth it and took his money and went home. Then he moved up to Super Middleweight the next year to face Anthony Dirrell who's somewhat of a power puncher, he put Sakio Bika down twice in their two matches, and The Dog no matter how hard he tried couldn't drop Veneno.

Martin Murray While personally I don't think very highly of Murray, one thing that can be said for him is he has an iron chin, he's gritty and isn't easy to look good against, proof of that lies in his three highest profile matches. He had a draw with Sturm, probably shouldn't have but it was close, gave Martinez all he could handle, but debatably and IMO rightfully lost but it could have been a draw, and recently fought Arthur Abraham to a SD loss that could have easily been a win for MM or at least a draw. He barely beat fellow GGG victim Khomitsky twice, but he does have solid wins over Spada, Nick Blackwell and Max Bursak. GGG could have easily dispense of him in round 4 but kept him around to entertain the masses and savagely took him out in round 11. Martin after his match with GGG put in a valiant performance against Arthur Abraham in Germany, many thought he deserved the nod, it should have been a draw, but since it was in Germany AA won.

Willie Monroe Jr. He took part in the ESPN's Boxcino Middleweight Tournament which he won. He did it with 2 impressive near shutout performances over the undefeated hard punching Brandon Adams and scored another shutout over hot Ukrainian Prospect Vitaly Kopylenko. He followed that up by beating the rugged Donatas Bondrovas and completely dominated Bryan Vera with ease and even dropped him something Chavez Jr couldn't pull off in two fights. He has one early close loss, against who else Darnell Boone, but he wasn't dropped like Ward, Kovalev or KO'd like Adonis. But GGG hit him so hard he couldn't feel his friggin legs. Monroe may still go on to be a force at MW or JMW, he's a very slick and solid fighter.

David Lemieux His handlers made a terrible miscalculation in putting him in with Rubio when they did, everyone thought that Rubio was shot after the Pavlik loss and figured David could add Marco's name to his resume, but Marco was just wily and tough enough to let David wear himself down although absorbing a ton of shots to do it, Lemieux had won the majority of the fight, but Rubio manage to stop the young lion when he was tired and with a punch behind his left ear which put David down affecting his equilibrium then a few seconds later his corner stopped the fight prematurely. His confidence shattered he fought Alcine next, with his head not in it, fearing that he would gas again, so he fought more conservatively letting another veteran get the upper hand and beat him by MD. After that he bounced back in a big way by stopping Rosado who's as tough as nails, and dropping N'Dam almost as many times as the much bigger Quillin, the shots David landed could have KO'd a horse, add to that he nearly killed Fernando Guerrero, all three of those wins are far more impressive than Peter Quilli's performance against them. GGG realizing what a monstrous puncher he had before him, never let him get close controlled him with his jab, and handled him with greater ease than anyone before.


I'm sure most of what I've written will not make slightest difference to any of the haters, and they will most likely not even come close to changing their minds, but the reality is, most of you guys don't know a damn thing about the Middleweight division because it is not US centric and you haven't seen them on HBO or Showtime very often, and in your minds if they don't get TV coverage they must suck.... which couldn't be further from the truth. GGG's resume is just as solid as many fighters who have praise heaped on them by the boatloads on this site, and if GGG was American and spoke better English, he'd be considered the best fighter in the world by many of you.

Is it ATG level...no, not yet it isn't.. but the absolute ease with which he's handled all of the aforementioned fighters who are usually a handful for almost anyone should be all anyone needs as evidence of what a monster GGG truly is. He isn't close to Mayweather, Ward, Pacquiao, Kovalev or Canelo in terms of name value, but that's to be expected when no one is willing to fight him.

Judging his wins quality wise they are comparable to wins over Maidana, Guerrero, Algieri, Ortiz, Margarito, Judah, Miranda, Rios, Bika level guys. He hasn't got his shot at a Marquez, Froch, Kessler, Cotto, Bradley, Mosley, Alvarez level guy yet, but when he does, he'll prove to everyone what his fans have known all along. That he's one of the best fighters in the world. And most likely after his first quality win he'll go right back to being one of the most avoid fighters in the world.