Gennady "GGG" Golovkin: setting the record straight on several matters.

Hardly surprising what with his injury woes and all. He was contemplating retirement and expressing disillusionment with the politics of the sport way back in early 2012 too. Real shame as he was really talented and enjoyable to watch.

'Dmitry Pirog will seriously consider retirement if a bout with one of the middleweight stars isn’t secured in the near future. Pirog (19-0, 15 KOs), 31, the reigning undefeated WBO middleweight champion of the world, was featured as a hero during a specifically designated press conference to honor him as the best Kuban sports person in 2011 (Kuban is a huge river in southern Russia, a native land for Pirog). The media meeting took place in Krasnodar, just near his hometown of Gelendzhik.

“The gap of time between my last title defense (against Gennady Martirosyan), and the next one, has definitely been too long. The reason is that negotiations with possible opponents are just under way. They started immediately after I stopped Martirosyan and they are still ongoing I’ve raised the standard rather high and I don’t want to let anybody – myself, my team or the fans – down. Yes, I’m looking for the unification, I need it badly! I wish to meet other champions in the ring to unify all of the belts in the division. That’s what I want! It’s a risky business, you know, and it’s a bit unusual for modern titlists to issue such challenges. Modern champs are interested in earning easy money; they want to fight on TV against safe, barely live opponents, to score meaningless victories. I have never put any accent on earning money in boxing. I don’t need it that bad as I have some. Maybe that’s the secret of my success – I fight only to prove myself and I’m ready to risk. I’m prepared to fight the best of the division: Sergio Martinez (The Ring), Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (WBC), Daniel Geale (IBF) and Felix Sturm (WBA). But for various reasons those fights are out of reach. Those guys don’t want any part of me”.

- Why so?

“Chavez Jr. is the son of the legend, and he is well protected to speak frankly. They put him against those guys, who are quite popular but who are definitely over the hill at the time of their fights with the kid.

We tried to reach a deal with Sergio Martinez. I have personally flown to America. The people with Team Martinez said to me that he doesn’t want to fight such a clever boxer like myself. It’s understandable: if he loses, he will lose a whole lot of opportunities on HBO.

Geale is very much like me. He also struggles to get along with HBO or Showtime; the American cable giants aren’t too interested in him. They are monsters, they have all the money. Geale is fairly known in America, I’m a bit popular in Russia. I was ready to fight him in Australia but he again chose not to take the risk…

There’s no response from Sturm as well. He is supported by a well-known German TV channel. There were rumors the cable chiefs wanted Sturm to take a risk, to fight dangerous opponents, and my name has also been thrown in the mix, and I was ready to fight abroad but…

I’m not here to earn money. I’m here for the love of the sport. I will tell you one thing; I have never told it anyone beforehand… I’m not excluding the possibility of retirement if none of the champions will fight me. I’m ready to hang’em up if I will be limited to the present level of opposition. I’m fully sure I can make a bigger impact - not as a boxer - but in another role.

I have thought much about it and I feel that I’m very disappointed with modern prizefighting. It’s all about earning money, and I don’t want any part of it. For me boxing is a sport, and I won’t go against my beliefs”.'

 

It was said tongue-in-cheek, hence the inclusion of this smilie :smooch. The Golovkin haters keep citing Golovkin's weight in last two fights, both of which are the heaviest recorded weights of his career (and one of them was when his opponent missed the stipulated weight and came in heavy), to try and make out he's some kind of huge MW (not accusing you of this) so I just pointed out that technically he would only have to lose 5lbs not 6lbs to make 154 if we're going by his on the scales weight of his last two fights.

 

Yeah, same here. Pirog was a class act both in and out of the ring. He seems like a really intelligent guy too.

 

There is probably quite a lot of fighters out there who've sparred both Golovkin and Kovalev, I'd be interested in hearing what they had to say about how their power compares. The only fighter I can think of off the top of my head at the moment who has sparred them both is Peter Quillin and he said this. But then again that could be Quillin's pride talking.

[YT]JFSKd_s3Iu8[/YT]

 

lol I know. I remember seeing an interview with Golovkin and Abel Sanchez around the time of the Macklin fight. A member of the media asked them if they wanted Quillin and how the sparring went between him and Golovkin. The expression on both Sanchez and Golovkin's faces upon hearing the question about the sparring session where very revealing. They both smirked at the same time and you could tell immediately that Golovkin had worked him over.

 

I'm still waiting for someone to come up with a list of all the top MWs and world champions at that weight who were ducking B-Hop like he had Ebola and even relinquishing their world titles/interim world titles to avoid him during his reign down there.

Now do the same to B-Hop's 160 CV and see how impressive it looks.

And John David Jackson is being banded about as a big win for B-Hop? Is that the same Jackson who lost to a 9-6-0 nobody in his previous fight? lol

 

2:07 mark

[yt]hdpUmxoGMBw[/yt]

36:25 mark and 38:50

[yt]OjmdECWBQr4[/yt]