will golovkin be one of the great ones?

Compare Trinidad for Hopkins and Cotto for GGG.

Trinidad coming into the fight had an outstanding record. Unbeaten in almost 20 defences at 147.

Moved up and very nearly blasted out unbeaten dominant champ Vargas in the first round before stopping him in the 12th.

Moved up another division and destroyed a prime legit champ Joppy at MW.

Cotto- battered badly twice at 147. Shutout twice at 154.

Beat a shot , old , past prime , in-active and badly injured Martinez for the MW belt. Defended against two tweeners.

This is what your dealing with in todays weak era.

 

Hagler fought in a good MW division. If there was a 168 division back then , he would have likely beaten guys in it. He was too small for LHW.

Hopkins knew he was in a poor division. Thats why he moved up two division and became two time champ.

3G wants an easy ride. Every belt he has is made out of paper. Lemieux will be the first proper title holder he has faced in his career.
And he himself his a paper champ having just won a vacant belt against a nobody.

 

What was so good about Hagler's middleweight division? How many prime great or almost-great middleweights did he vanquish? :think

Hopkins, who I believe spent way more time at mw than Golovkin, moved up after he lost twice to Jermain Taylor and felt that he would be stronger at a higher weight. Your revisionist explanation of him moving up in search of better fights/tougher opposition is incorrect. (especially considering that he made one of those poor middleweights, Kelly Pavlik follow him up in weight to fight him...)

 

Hopkins moved up and beat top P4P ranked fighter Tarver in his first fight at the weight.

He didn't move up and fight any ol bottom feeder , he took on the best guy in the division who everybody felt was going to beat him.

There is nothing revisionist about that fact.

And from there he took on all the best the division had to offer. cALZAGHE , Pascal, Jones Jr , Dawson.

Pavlik was also meant to poll axe him , despite the CW

 

I still think Marv on the whole beat a crop of guys who were a level above Golovkin's victims.
Caveman Lee was probably the weakest of those title challengers and he was blown out inside a round.

Sure Hagler never did move up, but with smaller quality men rising up to challenge him, he didn't need to. Also let's not forget his body of work prior to winning the title, which in itself was considerably superior to Gokovkin's entire run so far.

I like Golovkin, but at this point he is far from real greatness. I'd like to see him elevated to that status one day, but at this point such talk is premature.

 

Tito was great at 147, against much smaller men, but never established himself as an outstanding middleweight. He went life and death with Vargas. I agree that he dominated William Joppy but I never realized that meant so much.

 

What's revisionistic and false is your description of Hopkins' motives, especially since you misstated this stuff in order to disparage Golovkin. 6'1 Hopkins stayed at 160 for as long as he could, feasting on little guys and mediocrities. Period. Do you disagree?

He had an impressive second career once he finally moved up (in hindsight, I don't give him credit for the Pavlik win and I won't even get into the Tarver weight-loss stuff).

Do you agree that Hagler didn't really beat any prime/near-prime elite 160-lbers?

 

Again, Hagler's MW era was better than Golovkin's but it still wasn't anything to write to the historians about. Tough, game guys who were for the most part quite limited.

 

he is a bit up there in age has had a long amateur career but if he gets the needed fights, unifies middleweights and shows a strong presence yes. Floyd would not give him a catch weight fight (and I DON'T BLAME HIM) he should dominate 160 first and if he feels the need to move up fine but guys like Monzon and Hagler was natural 160lbers and did not have too...there are some good middleweights coming up

 

He fought in one of the better eras I would say, especially also when he was taking on feared Philly fighters in their back yard. Even in a division as deep as this one is historically, most eras weren't flush with loads of talent.
But I think you were loosely inferring that Golovkin's competition was along similar lines to Hagler's, and as such the difference between Hagler and Golovkin isn't much.
In my view, that is wrong. Hagler's overall competition was a level higher than GGG's.

 

Golovkin is getting some good title unification fights, next is Lemieux, then the winner of Cotto/Alvarez, he also wants Quillin. After he cleans out the middleweight division he might go up, but why turn down big money fights to fight a nobody like SOB Ward? Ward can fight Stevenson, Beterbiev, Kovalev, they are light heavyweights and so is Ward..........................

 

You haven't done anything but dump on the reputations of the guys who are established as greats and are not telling me nothing about why GGG should be considered a great.

Hagler beat Hearns for one. He beat Duran , who had beaten a prime Barckey which was fight of the year.

Thats a lot better than Cotto beating a retired , one legged , catch weighted Martinez in a stinker.

This is the guy GGG is chasing instead of Ward. He's not even calling out Quilin , who would be a better scalp despite him having no belt.