The legacy of Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin!

Looking back on the legacy of former WBA, WBC and IBF world middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin, who emerged from the 2004 Olympics with a silver medal, turned pro in Germany in May 2006, winning his first ten fights by stoppage. . He later beat Ian ‘The Cobra’ Gardner 20-3.

Three fights later, GGG began a twenty-three match winning streak, ending with a narrow victory over Danny ‘Miracle Man’ Jacobs, 32-1, at Madison Square Garden in his seventeenth title defense.

GGG won the WBA middleweight title by stopping Nilson ‘Blade’ Tapia, 14-2-1, in December 2010. Some of GGG’s title defenses were against former IBF middleweight champion Kassim ‘The Dream’ Ouma, 27- 7-1, IBF USBA champion Lajuan Simon, 23-3-2, adds the vacant IBO title, and Grzegorz Proksa, 28-1.

In January 2013, he coached Philly’s Gabe ‘King’ Rosado, 21-5. He used sparring partners Philly’s Dhafir ‘No Fear’ Smith and Farah Ennis. Smith told me, ‘GGG hits like a heavyweight.’ Smith has been in camp with two-time super middleweight champion Andre ‘SOG Ward’ and said it will be a close fight between the two.

I watched the fight at the Madison Square Garden Theater, giving Rosado one of the first six rounds before he was stopped in the seventh round.

Next, GGG traveled to Japan to knock out Nobuhiro Ishida, 24-8-2. He then knocked out Matthew McLean 29-4. Two fights later, against Curtis ‘The Cerebral Assassin’ Stephens, 25-3, who claimed to knock out GGG, Stephens found himself on the canvas in the second round and stopped in the eighth.

GGG stopped former IBF and WBA champion Daniel ‘Real Deal’ Geale, 30-2, then added the WBC interim title, knocking out champion Marco Antonio Rubio, 59-6-1. He defeated Martin Murray, 29-1-1, Willie Monroe, Jr., 19-1, and added an IBF title by stopping champion David Lemieux, 34-2, in 2015. He then stopped Dominic Wade, 18-0, and Kell Brook, 36-0, before defeating Jacobs.

In September 2017, he was pushed to a hotly contested divisional draw by former middleweight champion Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, 49-1-1, who he chased for the last seven rounds. He then knocked out Vanessa ‘The Nightmare’ Martirosyan, 36-3-1, before giving ‘Canelo’ a rematch a year after they first met.

For some reason, GGG used the boxer-puncher style in the rematch instead of the one he used in the previous fight and lost to ‘Canelo’ for the first time, by majority decision. Instead, ‘Canelo’s promoter postponed the rematch for four years.

GGG has won four fights while waiting for a rematch, the last of which was in Japan when he stopped Ryot Murat, 16-2, in April 2022. His third meeting with Canelo came in September and he lost by a fairly close decision. Both looked like they were going through a fight that had been put off for four years. It would be GGG’s final fight, finishing 42-2-1 with 37 stoppages.

GGG from Karaganda, Kazakhstan is awaiting induction into the IBF Hall of Fame. The way he conducted himself in and out of the ring does him credit.