By Dan Ambrose: Floyd Mayweather Jr. says that his nephew’s favorite fighter is middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, but after he saw his recent fight against welterweight Kell Brook, he now feels that he’s not the fighter he originally thought he was. Mayweather’s nephew now believes that Mayweather would have “destroyed” Golovkin if the two of them had fought each.
Mayweather says that Golovkin only has power against stationary fighters, but not ones that move around the ring. Unfortunately, Mayweather didn’t say anything about wanting to come back to boxing and prove his nephew’ theory of him being able to destroy Golovkin.
That would have been nice. You can’t say you can destroy Golovkin while sitting on your couch living a life of luxury, because few boxing fans will believe you. The fact that Mayweather barely beat Marcos Maidana suggests that he would be destroyed by Golovkin at some point. It wouldn’t be a fight. It would be a track meet. Golovkin would catch Mayweather with a big shot, and either stagger him or cause an injury that would likely result in the towel being thrown in to save Mayweather.
Mayweather said to Fighthype.com this about Golovkin:
“What we want to see is this: We’ve seen Sugar Ray Leonard go up in weight. We’ve seen Roberto Duran go up in weight. We’ve seen so many legendary fighters go up in weight, but my nephew’s favorite fighter Triple G has yet to go up in weight. But then you know what? I then see my nephew after the Kell Brook [vs. Golovkin] fight and I talk to him. ‘Yeah, he ain’t really what I thought he was. He cool. He cool.’ I say, ‘I told you he got punching power for a stationary target.’ He say, ‘You would have killed him. You would have stopped him. You would have destroyed him.’ I said, ‘Nephew, you ain’t telling me anything new.’ He was just a fan watching Triple G fight stationary targets,” said Mayweather.
It would be fun if Mayweather wanted to prove himself against Golovkin by agreeing to fight him. I believe that Golovkin is the only fighter in boxing that Mayweather would be able to get a nine-figure payday against. The fans aren’t going to buy in large numbers a PPV fight between Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao or Saul Canelo Alvarez again, because they already know how those fights would end. Mayweather already beat them both. He would get diminishing returns if he fought those guys again on PPV. The only fighter in the sport that Mayweather could get a nine figure payday against is Golovkin. The reason for that is because Golovkin has a huge following nationally in the U.S, and a lot of fans would pay gladly to see him and Mayweather fight, knowing that there would be an excellent chance that Mayweather would be knocked out.
I believe that the fans would pay for the Mayweather-Golovkin fight in many cases just to get the chance to see Mayweather get knocked out. The fans aren’t going to pay to see Mayweather fight Canelo and Pacquiao again, because they already know he can beat those guys. They don’t know whether Mayweather can beat Golovkin, so they would likely pay to see that fight. Of course, isn’t going to risk his hide by fighting Golovkin, because it would likely end in disaster for him.
Mayweather doesn’t seem to realize that Golovkin did a great job of cutting off the ring, and forcing a fleeing Brook into quitting in five rounds. Sure, Brook’s trainer Dominic Ingle threw in the towel to save him in the 5th round of their fight on September 10, but Brook appeared to quit himself long before the towel was thrown in. Brook stopped throwing punches after wilting from the heavy blows from Golovkin in the 5th. Brook was moving constantly from the 2nd round on. Golovkin did an excellent job against a NON-STATOIONARY fighter in Brook.
If you look at the Golovkin-Brook fight again, you can see that Brook was trying to move around the ring to keep away from Golovkin, but he couldn’t get away from him for any length of time. Each time Brook would stop to throw a jab or a pot shot, Golovkin was right on top of him, nailing him with heavy shots. In other words, it didn’t help Brook that he was mobile against Golovkin, because he still had to stop his feet to throw his shots.
Once Brook stopped, he was getting nailed. Let’s face it; Mayweather would be in the same boat Brook would be in if he fought Golovkin. Mayweather could run around the ring to avoid Golovkin, but once he stopped, he would have to take a shot to the body or the head. Sooner or later, Mayweather would break down and either quit or get stopped. Golovkin would be too strong for Mayweather. That’s just the reality of it.
With the way that Mayweather is talking, you would think that Brook won the fight against Golovkin rather than the other way around. Golovkin said it himself that he turned the fight into a street fight as soon as he realized that Brook has no punching power for the middleweight division. Golovkin could have boxed Brook and made it a boring affair like many of Mayweather’s fights in the past, but he had a different goal. Golovkin’s goal for the fight was to knockout Brook.
Mayweather might not realize this, but when you’re trying to a knockout, you’ve got to get dirty by putting your own chin on the line. You can get a knockout the boring way by jabbing and throwing single pot shots all night long like we used to see with former heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, or you can get a knockout by mixing it up and turning it into a brawl. That’s what Golovkin did against Brook.
Golovkin opted for the exciting approach to getting the knockout of Brook. That’s what Mayweather I failing to point out. Yeah, Golovkin could have made it boring and pecked away at Brook using his jab and single right hands all night long like Mayweather, but he wanted to make it exciting for the boxing fans. That’s the difference between Golovkin and Mayweather. Golovkin is willing to make it exciting for the fans by getting in there, taking some shots, and then bludgeoning his opponents until they either quit or get taken out in the traditional manner.
It’s not by accident that Golovkin has been able to become arguably most popular fighter in the U.S in just four years’ time. Saul Canelo Alvarez is popular with his own built in fan base in the U.S, but Golovkin appears to have a more national fan base rather than regional one in my view. The reason for this is because Golovkin makes for exciting fights.
If Golovkin fought in a safety first manner like Mayweather, he would likely have far fewer fans than he does now. You don’t win over fans by pecking away at them with jabs, pot shotting and running around the ring. You win fans by knocking out opponents. It took Mayweather over a decade to become a pay-per-view attraction in the U.S, and even then, he needed a win over Oscar De La Hoya for that to happen. Golovkin has become a star in just four years, and he’s not from the U.S like Mayweather. Golovkin didn’t have the advantage that Mayweather had in coming from the U.S, fighting in the Olympics, and getting a fight against a faded De La Hoya. If Golovkin had all those things in his favor, he would have likely been a PPV attraction right off the bat in his first fight in the U.S.
