This is Rummy’s Corner.
Last Saturday from Saitama, Japan, in a middleweight championship contest that was broadcast on
the still relatively new streaming app service known as DAZN, Gennady Golovkin put his IBF
middleweight championship on the line against WBA super duper middleweight champion Ryota
Murata.
This actually wound up being a helluva nice scrap, that was essentially a tactical slugfest
that saw both champions landing an awful lot of hard flush punches.
Over the first 4 rounds, things were heated and competitive, where Gennady tended to start
the rounds strong, Murata was proving durable, and he was often firing back strong in the
later portions of the round.
At times Golovkin was looking old and slow, and he almost gave the impression of a fighter
who no longer has the gas tank to pull the trigger when he otherwise may have done so
just a few short years ago.
Golovkin and Murata both were displaying strong chins, and they both came to fight.
Around the 5th round, Murata was becoming far more reluctant to walk into the firepower
of Triple G, and this trend progressed during the ensuing rounds, where Golovkin was throwing
his jab with authority, and he was landing a number of menacing left hooks and sneaky
short uppercuts.
It was a very Golovkin-esque performance where he grinded down his opponent with a blend
of power and technical prowess in a vintage methodical performance.
Golovkin was breaking him down physically and mentally before dropping him hard in round
9, which prompted his corner to throw in the towel.
So Golovkin is now the unified IBF/WBA super duper middleweight champion, where he has
now made 2 title defenses since reclaiming a title following his loss to Canelo Alvarez.
And that’s the focus now for Golovkin.
He did his part, and now Canelo has an upcoming match against Dmirty Bivol on May 7th - which
incidentally, I hope to finish a prediction video on that one sometime in the relatively
near future.
Assuming a Canelo victory, which is not a given, that should pave the way to a long
awaited 3rd encounter between Canelo and Golovkin.
And even if Bivol managed to score the upset, a 3rd encounter could still be in the cards
regardless.
Their second encounter happened all the way back in September 2018, almost exactly a year
to the day after their controversial draw in the first meeting.
The rematch was a close and competitive affair with a few very tricky rounds to score along
the way, and at the conclusion of 12 hard fought rounds, Canelo was awarded a 12 round
majority decision.
To this day this is the only official loss on Golovkin’s record, although unofficially,
there are a good number of fans who believe that Golovkin deserved the nod in both encounters.
Regardless of your opinions on that, there is little argument that Canelo performed much
better in the rematch, and he even managed to improve while making a drastic shift in
his approach and strategy.
Since that fight, these two have been on diverging paths, albeit both successful and unblemished
paths to date.
Golovkin has now won 4 fights in a row since then, meanwhile, Canelo has won 7 in a row,
with an 8th fight in the very near future, and during that stretch Canelo has looked
fantastic where he seems to be showing steady improvement.
Canelo defended the unified championship at 160, he won a major world title at 175, and
then he beat three undefeated champions in a span of less than 11 months to become the
first undisputed champion in the history of the super middleweight division, and he likewise
became 1 of only 6 boxers to become undisputed in any weight class during the modern 4 belt
era.
Basically Canelo seems to be just hitting the full stride of his boxing prime, whereas
Golovkin appears to be winding down at the age of 40.
The big question is, assuming this fight indeed happens at 168 in a battle for Canelo’s
undisputed super middleweight world championship, how will Golovkin handle 168?
Triple G is a career middleweight, and I see a lot of fans criticize him for never moving
up, and I never fully understood that criticism myself.
I personally don’t like guys moving up in weight just for the sake of moving up, and
in the case of Gennady he was always perfectly suited for middleweight.
Now that’s not to say it wouldn’t have been awesome to see Golovkin square off against
Carl ‘The Cobra’ Froch at super middle.
Rumors of that one being in the cards back in the day was a captivating proposition.
And it involved the same question about Gennady we have now, about his ability to remain effective
at 168, when he’s perfectly suited for 160.
Personally, at that time I favored Froch in that match-up.
Not that my opinion means a damn thing.
My subpar track record of making predictions is well established.
I’m not exactly Quasimodo over here.
I mean Nostradamus.
You know Quasimodo predicted all of this.
Oof madone!
Alright, take it easy.
Not that I thought it would have been a give-me for Froch, and looking back now, Golovkin
may have had a better chance to win than I thought at that time.
After all, Gennady is a proven battle tested warrior.
But so was Froch.
At that time, my line of thinking was The Cobra was a well established proven elite
boxer at 168.
Froch was tough, he had a little versatility, and he had a lot of heart and determination.
The Cobra had a very good resume, he always came to fight, and Froch defeated George Groves
in front of 80,000 screaming fans at Wembley Stadium.
The point is, even with his great abundance of talent, it was difficult to know how well
Golovkin’s unique blend of assets would translate 8 pounds north.
Would his power carry up, would his stamina be the same, how well would he absorb the
power of a naturally bigger super middleweight?
We never found out the answer to that question back then, and now that Golovkin is 40 where
he appears to be in a slow visible decline, that question becomes even more pronounced,
especially since Canelo seems to be right at the height of his powers.
Logically speaking, when you consider some of the trouble that guys like Derevyanchenko
and Murata were able to give Golovkin at certain points in their fights, and you look at the
way Canelo has torn it up at 168 - logically speaking, it is difficult to find a path of
hope for Golovkin getting that ever elusive career-defining high profile victory.
Canelo seems to handle jumping around different weight classes effectively, so pinning any
hopes on negative effects from bouncing around weights seems unlikely, although I do question
how much longer he can effectively get away with that sort of thing.
But the one saving grace that should give Gennady some hope, at least as I see it, is
the fire clearly still burns.
I think legacy is something that is important to Golovkin, and he proved that to me against
Murata.
Sure he got tagged good a few times, and he absorbed some unpleasant leather downstairs,
but he maintained focus, he stayed the course, and he saw it through in workmanlike methodical
fashion before ultimately breaking Murata down.
It is difficult to imagine a winning scenario where a 40 year old Golovkin moving up in
weight to face his younger former conqueror who has only gotten better since last they
met.
But you know the old saying styles make fights, and these two styles clashed in a captivatingly
competitive rivalry.
I believe this might well turn out to be a situation like the Pacquiao-Marquez rivalry,
where most people thought Pacquaio would steamroll him the 3rd encounter, that wound up being
uber competitive, before another wild and competitive 4th encounter that saw Juan Manuel
Marquez finally get the victory he always believed he deserved in their previous matches.
Some rivalries are just always going to produce a competitive battle, and I believe Golovkin
and Canelo will prove to fit that mold, despite Triple G jumping up at 40 to face the prime
face of boxing.
And if Fury and Wilder showed us anything, it’s that the 3rd fight in an intense rivalry
often proves to be the most heated encounter.
But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, Canelo vs Bivol is up next month.
Thanks for watching everyone, I hope you enjoyed, and have a wonderful night.
This is Rummy’s Corner.