Gennady Golovkin vs Mike Gibbons.

Lemiuex and Murray were clearly Top 5 if not 3. TBRB had David No. 4 IIRC. The division is ****e anyway.

 

And theres next to no depth in the MW division today which is why we are having this discussion.

And Golovkin has not fought his first real opponent.

Sorry but I don't give two ****s about amateur boxing. How many fights these guys have in the amateurs IS comparing apples and coconuts. Its usually meaningless. The only reason people even bring it up is because the person they are talking about has nothing worthwhile to discuss in his pro career. And no, he has not had 15 world title fights. Hes defended a meaningless gaudy strap, one of many, against a lot of guys who wouldn't have been qualified to even headline a card 40 years ago much less challenge for a title. Its ridiculous.

Its remarkable how fast stamina and punch output drops when you are fighting a good fighter or in Gibbons' case an ATG fighter. Conversely its amazing how active you can be and how easy you can make a fight when you are fighting walking corpses.

Who has he fought? No one. Bums have a bad habit of not being able to avoid punches, or land them.

LOL. You are talking about a guy who was a master of standing inside with an opponent, making him miss, and making him pay. He did this with some of the greatest fighters in the history of the division. Ever hear of guy named Jack Dillon? He was a MW who beat HWs. He could punch, he could box, he was extremely durable, he could basically do it all. Gibbons stood toe to toe with him and kicked his ass so convincingly that Dillon was left not with excuses for his loss but praise for Gibbons saying that he thought Gibbons would box and run but was shocked that Gibbons stood in with him and still beat him to a "T".

This is simply not true. If you knew anything about Gibbons from both word of mouth and from his own lips you would know that he was very mild mannered and the one thing he didn't like about the sport was hurting people. He could hit just fine and Golovkin certainly isn't walking through him. Gibbons isn't Martin Murray or Ishira. In short hes not some bum whose never been to the big dance. Who exactly walked through Gibbons? Nobody and he beat guys a lot better than Golovkin ever will be.

Jack Dillon was an all time great legendary puncher. Eddie McGoorty was one of the hardest punchers the division has ever seen. George Chip was one of the hardest punchers in the divisions history. I could go on but just because these guys don't have the glossy KO percentages based on knocking out nobodies doesn't mean Gibbons never fought a banger on Golovkins level. These guys all have resumes that **** all over Golovkins and if they had the easy job of facing the absolute dearth of talent that Golovkin has been feasting on they would have the glossy KO percentages that Golovkin has.

If you think he has nothing to fear from Gibbons then you are stupid, which we already knew but you are just outlining that fact. You would have us believe that Gibbons' all time great status, and recognition as a pound for pound great in his own time was what? Happenstance? He just got lucky? He accomplished what he did by fighting a MUCH higher level of competition across several divisions. Your basing your belief on Golovkin from his fights against absolute nobodies. Its beyond ignorant. One guy is a proven entity against other all time great fighters. The other is unproven against **** quality fighters. I think I'll go with the guy who has a ridiculously deep resume, not the guy with a bunch of knockouts over setups designed to make him look good.

LOL. First of all Gibbons didn't lose to McFarland. Second its no shame to lose to four other ATG fighters, all of whom Gibbons has wins over. His losses to O'Dowd, Smith, and Greb all came when he was past his best. He avenged the Smith and O'Dowd losses as well as the Bartfield and McCarron losses. His loss to Robson took place in the last year of his career when he was going blind. Every fighter on your little list Gibbons beat and all were very good. For instance, McCarron, who is largely forgotten today was so good when he fought Gibbons that his contract was purchased for the unheard of sum of $50,000 prompting the press to dub him "the $50,000 beauty". So yeah, get back to me when Golovkin has fought one VERY GOOD fighter in his prime much less five all time great fighters in theirs.

And I contend we don't know how skilled GGG is. Neverless regardless of how good he looks against his bums Gibbons was an all time great legend who did over longer distances than Golovkin and against better fighters. As such, yes, I think he could do it as long he needs to. That's the point. That was his game.

Cotto might be but is it for what hes done at 160? No. Beating a completely broken down falling apart Martinez and Daniel Geale in catchweights fights no less is hardly the stuff of legends at MW. Canelo is ordinary IMO.

Uhhh, Gibbons fought in an era of same day, even ringside weigh ins. His career highest weight was 162 1/2. He was making 150 even late in his career. Its not a game to suggest hes naturally a much smaller. Does Golovkin weigh in ringside? If he does its a different fight entirely.

Sure it is. The difference in weigh ins today vs yesteryear is extremely important to this matchup because you are talking about a guy whose ringside weight was in the low 150s in his prime vs a guy whose ringside weight is likely in the 170s. Are you going to make Golovkin melt down for a ringside weight to 160? If so this fight looks great for Gibbons. Are you going to make Gibbons fight a LHW? Both guys fought at MW but MW today is not what MW was in Gibbons day so its a very relevant question.

And again, this is all based on him fighting nobody worth a damn. Those types of a matchups tend to make the favorite look better than he is. That's matchmaking 101.

 

Murray has fought four "name" fighters and couldn't beat any of them.

Lemiuex is a glass jawed hype job whose biggest win came against a bloated protected ex JWW Camacho.

If those are two of the top five guys in the division then the division is in BAD BAD BAD BAD shape.

 

Yes, 160 is a complete joke right now. Has been for quite some time.

 

GGG has done NOTHING to be spoken in the same breath as any proven ATG. Let's see him in a real tough fight where he is hurt and losing THEN we will see what he is made of. GGG at this point in time is NOT an ATG fighter. Talking of him as such is an amateurish endeavor.

 

Ive seen more than one person in the last few yrs who thought Tommy was the better brother based largely on the fact that today Tommy is more well known via association with Dempsey and there being more film of him but when they were both active that idea would have been laughed at. It was taken as a matter of course that Mike was the better brother and Tommy a cheap imitation. Even Tommy admitted more than once that Mike was the better of the two without question. Mike was the innovator and everything tommy knew he learned from mike. It wasnt until mike retired that Tommy finally crawled out his older more well regarded brothers shadow and stopped being referred to primarily as "mikes brother". In later years in the upper midwest Tommy was respected but Mike was revered. Very few fighters from that era failed to pay him respect as THE MAN and stylistically his influence was felt for decades.

 

"Garbage" is all relative. I suspect that the vast majority of the men who Gibbons beat (and lost to) would probably look like garbage in the ring with Golovkin too. I suspect that "garbage" fighters like Marco Antonio Rubio, Martin Murray, and even Willie Monroe would do very well in time machine matchups against the middleweights of the 1910s. Would you pick Gibbons' opponents to do better against Golovkin than Golovkin's real life opponents? I certainly would expect Golovkin's opponents to fare better against Gibbons than they did against Golovkin.

Golovkin's fights demonstrate that he has outstanding power, great balance, very good punch variety, very good ring smarts, and a formidable jab. No reason to pretend that we can't "know" or "see" these things until we see him in with more impressive middleweights, unless you don't feel confident in your own ability to assess boxing skills and talent. The fact that he is consistently dominating solid, experienced pros in ways that they've never been handled before is highly revealing, even if we'd learn more by seeing him against some higher caliber opponents.

 

With respect, he's been fighting whoever has been willing to fight him.

Who in today's 160 division do you envisage giving him problems?

I don't see anybody on the horizon who one can look at and say "Oh, yeah, he could beat Golovkin on a good night."

 

Lufcrazy, understand that I'm not disputing your argument, but Klompton seems to think that Golovkin has been carefully fed handpicked opposition. I just don't see that. The only guy that he could have faced that could have had a realistic chance of beating him was Ward, who was 168 and is now campaigning two divisions above. I don't see anybody at 160 that he could be said to be "avoiding".

 

Im not saying he was fed handpicked opposition. Im genuinely not sure what to make of his matchmaking. I think i was fairly clear in saying that the division is the weakest ive seen in mayber forever. So he could fight everyone in the top 20 from #1 down and his resume would still be pretty weak imo. Its not necessarily his fault but it also wouldnt change the fact that hes untested. If a guy os dominant over a very very weak division does that dominance make him great? Not to me. It leaves a lot unanswered and to me a guy like that is no better than a good prospect.

 

there are only a few middleweights(4 or 5) who would have beaten the king but mike gibbons is just not one of them