How high do you rate prime Golovkin?

Very, very good. Not Hagler level, but still dominant force during his prime years

 

He had one of the best jabs I've seen, and serious (though not ATG as some think) power at the weight. His fundamentals were as solid as you can get and his chin was simply ridiculous. Lovely, subtle footwork and positioning and ring generalship. He was at least above average, mostly very good, at pretty much everything. He could be quite hittable at times but you suspect that was factored into his style as a way to open up opportunities for himself, and of course his chin allowed it. There was a kind of simple precision to his boxing. His resume isn't stellar but that wasn't really his fault. Probably in the discussion at least for top-three middleweight, and definitely in the discussion for my own top-three favourite boxers ever. We'll miss you Gennady.

 

Hard to say Middleweight has a very rich history with alot of tough fighters.

Marvin Hagler
Carlos Monzon
Sugar Ray Robinson
Michael Nunn
Bernard Hopkins
James Toney
Jake LaMotta
Sumbu Kalambay
Harry Greb
Roy Jones Jr

Etc.

Impossible to say how he does as he never officially beat a real upper echelon fighter.

 

Very highly H2H, but underwhelming resume. However, that still doesn't take away from his strengths.

 

I think he'd hold his own H2H against any 160 fighter in history.

The dude with the most defences in middleweight history was a bad bad dude in his prime and was the most ducked fighter I've seen in my lifetime.

And let's not forget that we essentially saw the career of an old fighter. His pro career was accomplished virtually all after the age of 30, at which time most other ATG fighters were starting to fall apart. Indeed, if we look at the amateur GGG, he exhibited better reflexes and better speed. He was verging on speedster territory, whereas the Golovkin we know has had average speed only.

His physical attributes are 10/10 on most metrics. Chin = invulnerable. Stamina = inexhaustible. Punching power = pulverising. Workrate = high. Strength = tanklike.

There have been fighters that have made a career just off two of those characteristics. Golovkin was special because he was so well drilled and so fluent in the fundamentals. Starting from his stance, which had a relatively high guard, but crouched over so that the elbows protected the body.It's hard to find a hole to exploit. Working his game off of an ATG textbook jab, Golovkin could throw every punch in the book. Indeed his ability to mix up his punches so well allowed him to pick guys apart with seeming ease. Dudes that gave former champions a hard time or arguably beat them got battered to pieces.

Golovkin's footwork was superlative. Always balanced and ready to counter, he managed to corner 'slippery' guys time and again and worked them over on the ropes. If you want to know how good he is look for technical videos about him on the web. You'll find videos on footwork, defence, the overhand, liver shot, the jab etc made about Golovkin where trainers and coaches use him as a model to instruct.

In terms of actual ranking at middleweight, I usually put him in the lower top ten because his resume, while not lacking, does fall short of the historical greats.

 

Canelo & GGG suck

Sucking McSuck faces.

 

Head to head monster

Was robbed in his Canelo fight

Avoided by many

His heart and desire left him after Canelo 2 and he chased only money

 

Better than most middleweights ever. If you're not putting him top ten h2h (leaving aside that there wasn't much opportunity for him to beat greats or near-greats in their prime, Pirog aside), then you're just underrating him, plain and simple.

That said, those having him run the gauntlet of Hagler, Hopkins, Monzón, Robinson, Toney, Tiger, Steele, Charles, Burley, Greb, Ketchel, Walker, Jones, Fitz etc. undefeated? Those folks are overrating the hell out of him, plain and simple.

 

Classicists underrate; modernists overrate. Voices of reason occupy the center.

The cosmic ballet goes on...

 

Beautiful to watch. Exciting, precise, fan-friendly style.

Makes me genuinely sad Vegas took the Alvarez UD out of his resume because of dollars.

 

If I had a magic wand to "correct" the last couple of decades of boxing, GGG going 2-1 versus Canelo is among the first orders of business alongside JMM being 4-0 versus Pac, Jose Armando Santa Cruz credited for his rightful upset over Joel Casamayor, Sturm nipping DLH's middleweight run in the bud, etc.

 

Him vs Hagler would be a trilogy imo