Bivol vs GGG Who's the more complete boxer?

Canelo had already fought at the super middleweight division vs Chavez jr, and looked huge.

 

GGG in his prime was a formidable fighter with no weaknesses to his game enough so to make Canelo give up the WBC belt to delay fighting him. GGG picked his first World belt up after 4 years as a pro,Bivol on the other hand is still yet to fight a Champion from his own division after nearly 10 years as a pro,seriously how can he be judged as a more complete fighter ?

 

Despite some people I respect going for Bivol, the correct answer is GGG. Why?

- Power is part of being a complete boxer. It's not all about natural talent, it's also about technique; broadly speaking, there is a trade-off between planting your feet and hitting harder vs staying lightfooted and mobile. Bivol is more towards the latter, while GGG is more towards the former, but that should not fool us.

- Comparisons to Canelo fights need to remember that: a) Bivol is 1-2 divisions bigger than GGG, and b) GGG was 35 after a long career when he first fought Canelo. Are we so sure that Bivol can still fight at a level to beat Canelo at 35? If GGG was a division or two bigger, would he not have done even better vs Canelo?

 

I'm not sure about this, because if you require power as being needed in order to be a complete boxer, then does that mean Floyd Mayweather Jr wasn't a complete boxer, because he didn't have power? (I know he had power early in his career, but I doubt anyone when he was P4P #1 with brittle hands in the early 2010s would claim he wasn't a complete boxer) If power is a key ingredient, that would mean Canelo is a more complete boxer than Floyd Mayweather who didn't have anywhere near as much power as Canelo. So I'm not sure that having power is key to being a complete boxer, but it can't hurt.

Many think a 39 year old (Beterbiev) would beat Bivol now. But according to GGG fans, a 35 year old was too old to beat Canelo.

This becomes a lot easier when you see Bivol as the close fight it was instead of listening to people who say Canelo was dominated or embarrassed or all the BS people come up with to claim corruption. One of the main reasons Canelo lost to Bivol was because 1) he had an injured hand 2) he moved up a weight class. Moving up a weight class meant that he put on weight, and gassed faster than usual. And of course despite all this, it was scored 115-113, which was a similar score to both of the first 2 GGG matches. If you see both of the first 2 GGG matches and the Bivol match as close fights despite the fact that Canelo performed far better against GGG because he was better prepared and in better condition then it's much easier to make the argument that GGG is the more complete boxer.

GGG fought a much better version of Canelo the first 2 times than Bivol did. A more experienced Canelo fought Bivol, a more confident Canelo, but a Canelo nursing a hand injury and carrying extra weight. Against GGG, Canelo was super motivated to be at his best, because he knew how dangerous GGG was. Against Bivol, it was the complete opposite, Canelo didn't fear Bivol's power like he did GGG, which affected his approach and his tactics. The 3rd time GGG was unmotivated, much older and had to move up in weight himself which (similar to what happened with Canelo against Bivol) affected his work rate and conditioning, only GGG did the opposite of what Canelo did against Bivol, instead of going for it early like Canelo did against Bivol, GGG knew he would gas if he fought like that, so started very slow to conserve his energy and his ability to step it up in the late rounds.

 

If GGG was a natural light heavyweight i dont think Canelo would have wanted to fight him like he did a wore out version of Kovalev. This situation would be similar to how Cotto knew better than fighting GGG in his fourth division up.

 

Golovkin had also already fought at SMW more than once. What's your point?

Canelo had one fight against someone who came to survive.

His first real fight at the full MW limit was Golovkin.

 

I wouldn't say that power is "key" but I would still claim it's a part of it. I would actually say that the older Floyd at 147 wasn't as complete as he used to be because of this, with a bit more power he could have kept e.g. Maidana off him more easily. I would also say Canelo has that one advantage over Floyd, but it's only one aspect and Floyd was so good at everything. Basically I think that if a boxer chooses to plant their feet and fight - both Canelo and GGG do this, they shouldn't be penalized for this assuming they also have the skills to fight in other ways. Bivol is super good at what he does but I think if he is forced to fight in GGG's style, he won't look nearly so impressive.

I'd actually be fairly confident that a younger Beterbiev would beat Bivol. I still favour Beterbiev now but only just due to age. I think Bivol will eventually get caught and have to fight it out, and the power disparity is huge. Canelo had no answer for Bivol stylistically - all he could do IMHO was try to be active and try to pinch rounds, but I actually think that Canelo might do better against Beterbiev stylistically due to his power, counterpunching and chin (the one problem may be stamina).

He wasn't embarassed but I definitely thought 115-113 was too close. I think the issue (and my issue) is that in boxing the A side almost always gets the close rounds (regardless of who it is), which IMHO hurts the sport's credibility.

I agree that GGG fought a better version of Canelo and I agree with most of this. In addition I think the GGG fights took something out of Canelo (and also out of GGG of course) both physically and mentally. That was the career highlight for both and it's hard to keep motivated afterwards, Canelo still had some good performances against some of he best available but none of those were against anyone on GGG/Bivol level.

The one thing I don't agree is that I didn't see the Bivol fight as that close - all seven Bivol rounds were pretty clear and I think he should have got some of the others too. Regardless of scoring there were a lot more clear Bivol rounds than clear Canelo or GGG rounds in either fight.

Agreed - the 3rd fight was good money for both but GGG was much older and unmotivated.

 

Exactly...GGG was a 300+ amateur fight veteran ...way more decorated experienced and skilled than Bivol. People think because GGG occasionally let fighters hit him that means he has **** defence/and is unskilled...which is just not true.

 

GGG. Stronger jab, better power punches, better chin, better combinations, better aggressor, more accurate.

 

GGG's power wins this contest. Bivol is damn good boxer but a slapper recently.

 

Bivol is very good, but he is pretty basic and primarily an arm puncher. I wasn't overly impressed by anything he did vs. Canelo. GGG's vastly superior offensive firepower, jab, and footwork more than offset Bivol's defensive capabilites.

The better defensive fighter isn't always the more skilled.

 

Not sure. Both are exceptional at what they do/did. No sense in comparing Canelo matches as Canelo was in his 2nd weight class against GGG and his 4th against Bivol

 

Better boxer is Bivol.
GGG is the more complete fighter tho.

 

Chavez was a former middleweight champion, who was recently at the time been fighting at 175lbs , Canelo was huge for that fight, 164 lbs with no fat. He had to come down to middleweight for Golovkin. Credit to Canelo for taking on the badest middleweight on the planet in his first fight at middleweight.

 

It wasn’t his first fight at middleweight - at the very least it was his third. Cotto and khan, with JCC Jr at super middleweight