Looking back at the legacy of former WBA, WBC and IBF world middleweight champion Gennadiy ‘GGG’ Golovkin, who emerged from the 2004 Olympics with a silver medal, turned pro in Germany in May 2006 and his won first ten fights by stoppage. . He later defeated Ian ‘The Cobra’ Gardner 20-3.
Three fights later, GGG began a twenty-three knockout winning streak, which ended 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, stopping Nilson ‘Blade’ Tapia, 14-2-1, in December 2010. Some of GGG’s title defenses were over former IBF light middleweight champion Kassim ‘The Dream’ Ouma, 27-7-1, IBF USBA champion Lajuan Simon, 23-3-2, who added 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 would be a close fight between them.
I covered the fight at the Madison Square Garden Theater and gave Rosado one of the first six rounds before he was stopped in the seventh round.
Then GGG traveled to Japan to knock out Nobuhiro Ishida 24-8-2. He then beat Matthew Macklin 29-4. Two fights later, against Curtis ‘Cerebral Assassin’ Stevens, 25-3, who claimed to knock out GGG, Stevens found himself on the canvas in the second round and was stopped in the eighth.
GGG stopped former IBF and WBA champion Daniel ‘Real Deal’ Geale 30-2, then added the WBC interim title and knocked out champion Marco Antonio Rubio 59-6-1. He defeated Martin Murray, 29-1-1, Willie Monroe, Jr., 19-1, and added the IBF title and stopped champion David Lemieux, 34-2, in 2015. Then Dominic Wade, 18-0, and Kell stopped Brook, 36-0, before defeating Jacobs.
In September of 2017, he was held to a highly contested split draw by former light middleweight champion Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, 49-1-1, whom he chased for the final seven rounds. Then he knocked out Vanes ‘Nightmare’ Martirosyan 36-3-1 before giving Canelo a rematch a year since their first meeting.
For some reason, GGG used a boxer-puncher style in the rematch instead of the puncher style he used in their previous fight and lost to ‘Canelo’ for the first time by majority decision. Instead, ‘Canelo’s promoter postponed the rematch for four years.
GGG won four fights while waiting for the rematch, with the last one in Japan stopping Ryota Murata, 16-2, in April 2022. His third meeting with Canelo came in September, and he lost a fairly close decision. Both looked like they were going through the motions in a fight that had been put off for four years. This would be GGG’s last fight, finishing with a 42-2-1 record with 37 stoppages.
GGG from Karaganda, Kazakhstan awaits his induction into the IBF Hall of Fame. The way he carried himself in and out of the ring does him a credit.
