Rubio is a solid challenger.

Put on your hardhats; IB will be dropping some knowledge. 8)

Just to clear the air before getting swept up in the crosshairs of the bitterly partisan camps regarding GGG:

:iak (back off, all of you, my gun's bigger than yours...)

I've long been in the guardedly neutral "let's wait and see" camp when it comes to Golovkin - neither ready to back him over MW legends such as Hagler and Monzon in historical fantasy h2h match-ups nor ready to dismiss him as the product of careful matchmaking and hype since turning pro. I'll leave it for the many other threads dedicated to (or hijacked for) discussion of whether he is "avoided" by everyone that might help legitimize him beyond all doubt or indeed "protected" from those real challenges that some believe would expose him or whatever. I just want to address the man in front of him at present: Marco Antonio Rubio. I've seen even some of Golovkin's backers sneer at this one, and that is strange. If you're going to be a stalwart defender of title contenders like Ozzie Adama you damn well better not pooh-pooh a much better contender in Rubio. He may feel like a letdown after Geale being less prominent on the global scene (though Rubio has been around forever, and fought more big names than Geale, and does have a halfway decent fan base of his own in Mexico although not rivaling Geale's in Australia just due to Mexico having a much larger and deeper boxing scene and pool of fighters with correspondingly more diluted loyalties) but he may in fact continue an upward trend after the faltering steps that came after Macklin.



Here are just a few bullet points on Rubio to put him in perspective for you (and each of these are facts, my subjective editorial take will follow)...

• Of his 64 career opponents, Rubio has only failed to stop and/or drop eleven of them (51 of his 59 victories by knockout or TKO or, in two cases, retirement...plus he knocked down Baysangurov and Ouma in defeat, and Marcus Upshaw in the 6th round of a UD12...leaving his other seven decision victories and lone draw, plus the defeats to Chavez, Pavlik and Jantuah. He fought Zertuche and Roman twice each, avenging his first stoppage loss against the latter and stopping the former twice)
• Rubio has scored fifteen KO1s. That is quite a few. Compare that with some of his rivals considered more than moderate punchers: Golovkin himself - 5 KO1s; Lemieux - 11; Pavlik - 7; Zertuche - 4; Chavez Jr. - 8; D. Miranda - 5. Make of that what you will, but some consider fast blowouts to be a fairly strong indicator of someone's "danger quotient" (factoring in their power and ferocity/aggressiveness) - a quotient that increases when discussing someone with good stamina, which Rubio does have proven by, on the other end of the spectrum, his many later and even championship-round knockouts.
• Rubio to date is the only man to ever stop Canelo's older brother, former interim WBA 154lb champ Rigoberto Alvarez...or tough Italian contender Domenico Spada. He also stopped Tata faster than Canelo had just a short time earlier in Baldomir's only stoppage defeats in a decade.
• Rubio in the last decade - going back to September '04 - has lost to sometime world champions and nothing but. (Saul Roman and Kofi Jantuah were national champions in their respective Mexico and Ghana and fringe contenders but never held world title belts)
• Rubio has been ranked in the WBC top 15 at middleweight for six years running since 2008 (Ring Magazine top 10 in three of those years), having moved up from 154lb in 2007 after spending from 2003 until 2006 ranked by the WBC at light middle.
• Rubio is the only man to date, besides perhaps Macklin, that is both Golovkin's equal in the tale of the tape and has the reputation of a formidable puncher in his own right. (Stevens had the pop to catch Golovkin's attention but is a mere 5'7"; Rosado is taller and punches well at 154lb but isn't a middleweight; Ishida, Simon, and Bouadla are taller than Golovkin - and Geale the same height - but all are decidedly feather-fisted at middleweight; Adama and Proksa too were taller - and Nunez only an inch shorter - and they did have decent KO percentages but most of those were likely TKO accumulation and none were against anyone of note, unlike proven hitters in Rubio, Stevens, and to an extent Macklin)

Rubio is at least on par with Macklin and Geale as Golovkin's all-around best opposition so far, taking into account their accomplishments, h2h ability, recent form, and being natural 160lbers.

Regardless of the courage they have shown in their careers otherwise, Geale and to a much larger extent Macklin both fought visibly scared against Golovkin. Don't expect that from Rubio. While the Poisonous One has been taken out early (twice, when green, over ten years ago) and ground down by Pavlik (but trading punches vigorously the entire way and never backing down, standing up to quite a bit of damage before Pavlik ultimately conquered him) he is - at the risk of belaboring nationalistic stereotypes - a Mexican through and through and not one to ever shy away from a fight even when he is favored to lose. (see Chavez Jr. vs. Rubio, where Rubio put in three minutes of hard work even in the rounds he lost...). He isn't, however, the mindless rock 'em sock 'em type often (exaggeratedly) associated with his countrymen, and is a pretty smart fighter, proving himself capable of both stalking with pressure, slugging, and countering effectively as needed in various stylistic match-ups after getting a read on the other man. He may not be in Golovkin's league in either raw power or ring IQ but he is closer to Golovkin in terms of combining those elements (and size, as mentioned above) in a "total package" than anyone Golovkin has yet fought in the professional ranks.



If you want my pick, I say Golovkin by KO - but I don't want to hear any of this "Rubio is a step down" or "Rubio is a letdown" nonsense. :nono El Veneno is head and shoulders above just about every middleweight contender (excluding possibly Korobov and Saunders) and some of the current titlists....especially given the watered-down nature of the alphabet soup. Rubio is a tougher out IMO for Golovkin than: interim WBA champ Dmitry Chudinov, IBF champ Sam Soliman, WBC champ but not-a-middleweight-really Miguel Cotto, regular WBA champ Danny Jacobs, and maybe even WBO champ Peter Quillin (jury's out on his chin until tested by an elite hitter like Rubio or better yet, Golovkin)

 

I'm a longtime Cotto fan (check my post history; you'll find lots more positive and even gushing talk of Cotto than plaudits for GGG) and Rubio is absolutely horrid risk/reward for him.