By Gerardo Granados: Last Saturday night, undefeated undisputed middleweight Champion of the World Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, who holds a pristine unblemished record of 37 wins and 33 of those by the way of knockout, won a clear unanimous decision against solid contender Danny Jacobs by the scores of 114-113 and 115-112 twice at Madison Square Garden in New York. I scored it 116-112 for Golovkin.
But somehow Gennady still was highly criticized by fight fans. Some fight fans even dared to say that Jacobs was robbed but failed to make a solid argument to justify such rant. I found it odd to see comments such as “little g is a hype job or he is shot he has slowed down”. A friend of mine asked me “why there is so much scrutiny on Golovkin performance”.
It’s interesting that Jacobs stated that definitely GGG was not the boogeyman, but then how come he was so cautious against him? As usual, Golovkin stayed humble and said nothing to demerit Jacobs, but part of boxing media have praised the loser instead of the winner, which makes no sense to me. When Kell Brook landed a big uppercut in the second round in his fight against Golovkin last September, boxing media talked about it as if Brook had flattened Triple G, but that same media did not praise Golovkin for being able to take the big shot.
During the fight last Saturday night, Jacobs connected with a clean hard left hook up followed by a clean right hand and Gennady didn’t even blink and kept moving forward. Gennady walked through a couple of Jacobs´s hard punches and all people say is that GGG is vulnerable because he got hit flush. C´mon have you even watched film on Sugar Ray Robinson? Fighters without a solid chin or the ability to absorb punishment and the heart to get through a hard fight have no place in pro boxing.
Have you seen Jake LaMotta, Marvin Hagler, James Toney or Kelly Pavlik fights? Were they hit more than once per round? Were they under the scrutiny GGG has being in the past year or so?
Jacobs managed to break Gennady’s 17 title fight knockout streak and now just for the sudden for some fans Golovkin has slowed down. Why not acknowledge how last night Jacobs looked huge compared to Golovkin after skipping the IBF’s fight day weigh in on Saturday morning?
How come Oscar De la Hoya is praised for having won a highly dubious decision against Felix Sturm, but Golovkin takes so much heat for not having big names on his resume. How come De la Hoya waited on and avoided top opposition thru his boxing career but there is no merit on Golovkin for being avoided by the so called big names?
How come we praise Rocky Marciano grit and ferocious fighting style, also how we all admire the heart Arturo Gatti showed. But Gennady gets criticized for taking a couple of shots against a solid contender and at the same time ends the fight with his face practically clean?
Back in October 2010, I wrote an article titled “What if boxers did not have a nationality” and I still believe a boxer deserves the support from fight fans regardless of his nationality. But somehow I am starting to think that if Golovkin was American born he would be the biggest star not only in American but in the World.
Some of the fans who criticize Golovkin look for any minuscule flaw on his performance to slander him. But would those fans still be so hateful if 666 was American born? I think that if the “Bronze Bomber” Deontay Wilder has a big following in America, even if he is not elite skilled, than Golovkin would be already a boxing great in American if he had not been born in Kazakhstan.
But how about the reader, do you too think that Gennady is just a hype job because he was not born here?