giacomino wrote: ↑18 Sep 2022, 11:55A 32-year-old GGG would have pounded a 32-year Canelo. Agree with you on historical nature of GGG. I have been watching boxing for more than 50 years and I’d only pick Monzón and Hagler ahead of him at middleweights in that time IMOThomastearns wrote: ↑18 Sep 2022, 10:48 Imagine if Canelo had been 40 and GGG 32.
Let's not also forget that GGG was already 35 by the time of the first fight.
Gennady Golovkin has been the best middleweight since Marvin Hagler.
Even more remarkably, he's achieved that in his 30s.
This is the right time to retire.
There's no point in him trying to prove that he was history's best ever 40 year old middleweight.
We already know that.
Agreed. It's not even worth considering what a 32 year old GGG would do to a 40 year old Canelo. In fact Canelo already looks shot at an age that Golovkin looked unbeatable.
Too much Mexican beef?
Carlos Monzon is a boxing legend, and some of the stories defy belief and there's only Marvin Hagler left to compare.
As for Hagler himself, Ray Leonard stated that as he approached 33 he felt that Marvin had slowed enough for him to take the fight.
Marvin Hagler, let's not forget, having grown disillusioned with the politics of the sport, was already gone at 33, and it looks as if Canelo might be too.
That Leonard v Hagler fight was considered unthinkable only a few years earlier. Even in 1987 many considered it a foolish risk by Leonard. Ray proved that it wasn't.
For us it's a pity that Eastern European boxers have to spend the largest, perhaps the best part of their careers fighting in the amateurs.
Most are already over 25 before turning pro, and with hundreds of amateur bouts on their record and that long slippery pole to the top still yet to climb.
GGG was no exception. Like Hagler, he was a boxing outsider who had to literally demolish anyone that stood in his way and before long many didn't want to know.
We know Canelo waited til Golovkin was 35 before taking the fight, and almost everyone understands how good Golovkin was in his early 30s.
Time is the great leveller.
Even at 40, a shadow of his former self, GGG is probably still more than a match for most middleweights, and they know it, but why bother?
I doubt whether we'd ever see him getting knocked out of the ring by a lesser fighter the way Hopkins was, but again, why bother?
He's made his money, and that's what it's ultimately all about, and now it's time to retire...unless perhaps, if that final unification fight at MW proves irresistible.
There really is nothing left for him to prove.
