There is a new escalating superstar in boxing and while die hard fans have known about him for some time, the rest of the viewing public soon will. Or they should.
Triple G- Gennady Gennadyevich Golovkin currently sports a spotless record of 34-0 with 31 knockouts, including 21 in a row. He has tremendous punching power with both hands and gives fans exciting, violent, and usually brief fights. His most recent fight took place in Madison Square Garden and resulted in another knockout win. Canadian David Lemieux was expected to be one of his more challenging opponents who had looked pretty sharp in recent months. Lemieux had won his last nine fights leading up to the bout and brought some potentially dangerous power to the fight. Triple G methodically and systematically worked Lemieux down until his eventual 8th round demise.
Golovkin, born in Kazakhstan, is rock solid and reminds me of those early “Strongest man in the World” competitors. He is thick, dense, and has unbelievable balance. According to various reports, Golovkin has avoided even a knock-down in over 370 amateur and professional fights. He is representative of the many great boxers routinely dodged by those who hold one version or other of championship belts promoted and sold by the various boxing sanctioning bodies. Hopefully he will have the chance to face one of his generation’s best boxers later in 2016 and have the breakthrough fight he deserves.
Future opponents for Triple G could include the winner of the upcoming super fight between Miguel Cotto and Canelo Alvarez. Look for Cotto, reinvigorated under the training of Freddy Roach, to provide an exciting performance against the much younger Alvarez to make his case for a fight with Golovkin. Cotto has been in the ring with the best fighters of his generation (Mayweather, Pacquiao, Martinez, and Margarito) and has never looked better in the ring despite being at the tail end of his career at the age of 34. Alvarez will have the stage again to prove he belongs in the elite class of fighters as opposed to just the good ones.
The early reports of the pay-per-view numbers for Golovkin-Lemieux are disappointing and that’s not great news for HBO. The network needs a new face of the sport but fans have yet to embrace some of their rising stars when it is time to buy fights. Golovkin is an appealing fighter, but beyond boxing fans he is little known and it is becoming increasingly difficult for boxers to break into the mainstream with the popularity of mixed martial arts and the recent lackluster mega fights in the sport. The Mayweather-Pacquiao fight was a financial boondoggle but a terrible prize fight. GGG provides the action fights that fans love and that ultimately are great for the sport of boxing. Hopefully he will have that chance.
