My all time middleweight rankings. 3 parts.

Golovkin. Lol. Weak ass padded record. The idea that he has 15 title defenses is more of an indictment of how weak boxing is today than how good Golovkin (who has proven NOTHING) is. Im still trying to figure out why so many people thought his setup fight with an overprotected, chinny, bum in Lemiuex whose biggest win was over camacho jr. Was going to be competetive. Of course it wasnt. Have we seen him in a fight yet you didnt know going in he was going to win?? Jesus, what a weak ass list. Jones??? He was in tje division for only four yrs, most of which was against nobodies at the very beginning of his career, and only managed to have one fight that in HINDSIGHT, was notable because he beat a green Hopkins to win a vacant paper title so much for dominance and acheivements, 66.6% of your criteria which equals next to nothing. Talj about a list based on pure fanboyism.

 

Roy Jones had too few fights at middleweight to warrant him being in the top 10, unless you're merging is middleweight and "super" middle weight careers. But I don't know how many people would deem that as acceptable. Head to head he's probably better than his legacy is at 160, but not something I'd rate anybody on.. Golovkin is certainly looking like he's on the track to becoming an ATG.. But his career is still in progress and his opposition weak.. rating him at #5 is a tad premature.. I'm okay with Hagler being #3 and Monzon being #4, though I can see an argument for flip flopping them.

 

The top 4 are ok maybe in a slightly different order,after that it goes pear shaped. Golovkin,Jones and Cerdan don't feature in my top 10 neither does Fitz ,the talent pool in his time was much too shallow. Cerdan didn't really conclusively establish that he was the best middle in Europe.
Jones ' resume at160 is too weak. I will rank GGG when he is retired, it's much too early to evaluate him now, he hasn't be in a real fight yet!

With those out there are 4 places going begging ,in no order I would put Steele,Tiger, LaMotta,Giardello,. with Zale and Hopkins as subs.

 

I agree.

Golovkin is on his way there, but even if he cleans out the MW, I don't think he's going to quite have the resume to warrant a higher ranking.

If he was to move up to SMW where there's bigger names and he does well. Id have no issue ranking him highly.

Ward is Golovkins automatic passport to ATGness in my opinion.

 

I don't understand why Kovalev gets underlooked when it comes to Golovkin. To me Kovalev is much closer to ATGness than Golovkin.

 

Well yeah, kinda why I said that in order to give Jones credit for some of his better wins you'd have to merge his middle weight and super middle weight careers together.. Some people might deem that as being okay while others wouldn't. If you do that, then you have to start comparing men like Andre Ward, Joe Calzaghe and Nigel Benn to fighters like Marcel Cerdan, Jake Lammotta and Gene Fullmer.. Jones' wins over Toney was a legit and solid victory over a prime ATG.. But again it took place in a different division.. Bernard and Jones were both still developing when their bout took place.. Crediting Jones for that win would be the same as crediting bernard for beating him in the rematch when they were both well past it.. GGG is definitely talented. But as I said his career is still on progress, lacking in quality and without very many fights.. Tell me something.... If Golovkin were to fight someone like Andy Lee within his next couple of fights and get upset, would you still have him at #5?

 

They both have top challengers in their class that they still have yet to face, and mostly to no fault of their own. Adonis Stevenson is ducking Kovalev and not getting any younger. Peter Quillen is a legit challenger for Golovkin but doesn't seem to eager to have anything to do with him, and in truth may lose his next fight if he's not 100%.. Unfortunately though, the specific details of WHY these fights aren't made tend to get lost in the shadows of time, potentially making for less knowledgeable people criticizing them in the future in much the same way that people criticize Holmes for not fighting Greg Page or Pinklon Thomas.

 

True Golovkin through no fault of his own dominates a weak middleweight division today. But what is GGG supposed to do with all his prior opponents ? Kill them ? Can he be blamed for coming of age today when there is a dearth of top notch middleweights at this time ? Hell no ! But what I see and what his
impressive record of over 300 amateur fights and over 30 pro fights in which
Golovkin was NEVER FLOORED or even visibly hurt, tells me he has a great set of whiskers along with very very hurtful hands and a great painful jab
that creates havoc on any middleweight...Summing up this post, I have been watching middleweights since the 1940s, seen all the top MWs, many ringside
and though I love the oldtimers because of the rich pool of talent they had to contend with time and again, I contend that the "Kazhak Killer GGG would do
"very nicely" with the very best of the cream of the crop middleweights in modern times [ post Harry Greb etc]...Though his opposition is weak today compared to other middleweight era's I have seen in the past, Gennady
could and would be a handful for any modern 160 pounder and rise to the occasion...

 

:deal Well put.