Looking back at the legacy of former WBA, WBC, and IBF World Middleweight champion Gennadiy ‘GGG’ Golovkin, who came out of the 2004 Olympics with a Silver Medal, he turned pro in Germany in May 2006, winning his first ten fights by stoppage. He later defeated Ian ‘The Cobra’ Gardner, 20-3.
Three fights later, GGG started a twenty-three-knockout winning streak, ending with a close win 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 middle champ Kassim ‘The Dream’ Ouma, 27-7-1, IBF USBA champ Lajuan Simon, 23-3-2, adding the vacant IBO title, and Grzegorz Proksa, 28-1.
In January 2013, he was training for 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 had been in camp twice with super middle champ Andre ‘S.O.G. Ward’ and said it would be a close fight between them.
I covered the fight at the Madison Square Garden Theater, giving Rosado one of the first six rounds before being stopped in the seventh round.
Then GGG traveled to Japan to knock out Nobuhiro Ishida, 24-8-2. He then knocked out Matthew Macklin, 29-4. Two fights later, facing Curtis ‘Cerebral Assassin’ Stevens, 25-3, who claimed he would knock out GGG, Stevens found himself on the canvas in the second round and stopped in the eighth.
GGG stopped former IBF and WBA champ 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 the IBF title, stopping champ David Lemieux, 34-2, in 2015. Then stopped Dominic Wade, 18-0, and Kell Brook, 36-0, before defeating Jacobs.
In September of 2017, he was held to a highly disputed split draw by former light middle champ Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, 49-1-1, whom he chased for the last 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 one he used in their previous fight and lost for the first time to ‘Canelo’, by majority decision. Instead ‘Canelo’s promoter put off the rematch for four years.
GGG won four fights while waiting for the rematch, with the final one in Japan stopping Ryota Murata, 16-2, in April of 2022. His third meeting with Canelo came in September, and he lost a rather close decision. Both looked like they were going through the motions in a fight put off for four years. It would be GGG’s final fight, ending with a 42-2-1 record with 37 stoppages.
GGG from Karaganda, Kazakhstan, is waiting for his induction into the IBF Hall of Fame. The way he has conducted himself in and out of the ring makes him a credit.
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