Since GGG's team has expressed a willingness to face 51 year old Bernard Hopkins...

Scoring a stoppage is the purest form of victory in pro boxing. If you knockout the opponent you cannot possibly lose the fight.

A fighter who scores a KO exerts their dominance through skill and physicality over another opponent.

 

True, but you also risk getting knocked on your ass by going for the K.O. too early. Golovkin has never been knocked on his ass, whereas Kovalev has on multiple occasions, against poor competition.

What i'm getting at is that Kovalev could have stopped Lemiuex and Murray sooner, but that isn't necessarily because he hits harder, its because he takes a bigger risk in going for the kill sooner.

I'm sure if GGG's life depended on getting the 1st rnd K.O., you would see much more of his power. However, a knock out in the 8th or 11th is the same amount of win as getting it in the 1st, if you dominated every minute of the fight leading up to it.