Pirog won a tight 7-5 decision against Maciel. Ishida made it the full twelve. He was fresh and swaggy but ultimately a one-hit wonder (Jacobs right before cancer discovery) if we are comparing him among other titlists of the last fifteen years. Not saying that hes in the bottom X% or anything but it is what it is. He is, however, wildly overrated on this specific forum. And hes a Russian Duma member so he can go choke on one.
Pirog was far more skilled and fluent than flat footed swinger Clenelo. Better than Trout (I had it 7-5 clen, but there's a case for Trout) , and possibly Lara (who beat Canelo 7-5, arguably 8-4) and bigger in size than both. What makes you think Canelo would fight a prime Pirog? He'd do everything he could to ensure Pirog was incapacitated if the fight happened to be scheduled
What makes you think Pirog would be elite at all today, or even then ? The dude disappeared 10 years ago and he is only remembered because of his KO of Jacobs. For all we know GGG could've destroyed him had he not have his back injury back then. So many prospect ended up disappearing. Remember Khytrov ? People were so high on him here.
I just think he's very skilled compared to most of the middleweights.And that showed when he sparked out Jacobs. Golovkin Pirog and Canelo Pirog would have been highly skilled entertaining match ups
He dis show glimpses of quality in his career before retiring. Khytrov never looked as good as him imo.
I agree about Khytrov, but some people here were pretty high on him being the next big thing. In the division. Pirog did show qualities, but he also has no one of note on his resume that ever achieved anything, so it's hard to judge how good Pirog was, or could've been. There is Jacob, but he was still green at only 23, had a death his is family prior to the fight and was later diagnosed with cancer so we have no clue if it's something that affected him at all too. We can only compare Pirog and GGG with Ishida. Pirog won a wide UD, a couple of months after GGG knocked him out of the ring flat out cold. He is the definition of a good "what if ? " Unfortunately we will never know how good he really was. If you go back in some threads on this board from back in the days, a lot of people thought Pirog would make easy work of GGG. I always thought GGG would knock him out.
Well 80% of succesful amateurs have a succesful pro career aswell to a certain extent. I think Khytrov was trained poorly aswell-Rozier made him strictly a wrecking ball but that’s going into a lot of details. With Pirog it is t a case of resume it s a case of what he showed,he was a russian who fought in an american style.He had plenty of substance,a good jab,feints,footwork,etc. He was highlt rated and rightly so imo. Alao you have to remember him and GGG were signed to fight in what ?2012?GGG hadnt even made his HBO debut yet so you cant judge it by hindsight,at the time he was relatively unknown and untested.
Korobov is another highly successful amateur who didn't manage to stay on top in the pro. He was also on the side ofbad decisions but that's another story. I took notice of GGG around the Ouma fight, a little bit before his HBO debut. I thought he was a beast back then. The Pirog fight was supposed to be is HBO debut, until Pirog withdrew with his back injury and Proksa took is place.
