BoxRec

... who could he have realistically fought and how great would he be considered.

I either read or heard somewhere that when GGG was with Universum he was pleading his management for a shot at Kelly Pavlik's title, but they told him that wasn't part of their plans for him. It was around that time that he left them for K2, who have been much better, but have still so far failed to secure GGG a superfight. Looking back, while trying to keep things semi-realistic, I've come up with the following scenario:

GGG is kept more active and matched more abitiously in his early career. His first title shot is for the full WBA title against Felix Sturm in November 2008, which he wins by a late rounds stoppage. He successfully defends his title three times in 2009 against fairly ordinary opposition, before facing Kelly Pavlik in a unification bout in April 2010 - a competitive fight where a bloodied Pavlik makes it to the final bell but loses a clear decision, giving GGG the WBC and WBO belts. After this fight GGG is considered the clear and lineal middleweight champion and a top 10 p4p fighter. Around this time he begins training with Abel Sanchez, who helps him to develop a more aggressive style of fighting.

Later in 2010, GGG picks up the final piece of the puzzle - the IBF belt, by stopping Sebastien Sylvester - making him the first unified middleweight champion since Jermain Taylor beat Bernard Hopkins.

GGG continues his reign as middleweight champion, fighting 3-4 times per year and taking on his mandatory opponents to ensure he holds on to all of his belts:

2011 - Martinez (WTKO8), Geale (WKO3), Barker (WKO2).
2012 - Macklin (KO3), JCC Jr (WRTD9), Proksa (TKO5).
The Chavez Jr fight is GGG's second PPV event and makes him one of the biggest drawcards in the sport, behind only Mayweather, Pacquiao and Cotto.

2013 - Rosado (TKO7), Murray (TKO11), Quillin (WTKO4), Stevens (WTKO8).
2014 - Adama (TKO7), Lara (UD12), Froch (TKO8).
Lara ends GGG's 13 fight KO streak that started after the Pavlik fight. Lara is knocked down twice, but uses his feet to go the distance, stinking the joint out in the process and losing a wide decision. GGG makes a temporary move to 168lb to knock out Carl Froch at Wembley in an action-packed, though mostly one-sided fight.

In 2015, GGG wins his 19th successive title defense against Andy Lee via a 7th round TKO. By now, he is generally considered to be the p4p #2 fighter in the sport, behind Floyd Mayweather, who has never taken him up on his offer for a superfight at 154lb. GGG equals Bernard Hopkins' middleweight title defense record by stopping Canelo in the 8th round of their Cinco de Mayo '15 showdown, which is a huge PPV success, establishing GGG as the #1 star in boxing, post Mayweather-Pacquiao.

In his final fight of the year, GGG moves up to 168lb to take on Andre Ward in a fight that will decide who is p4p #1 since Mayweather's retirement. The skillful but rusty Ward wins the first three rounds, before being caught with a huge punch in the 4th round and going down, he gets up and holds onto GGG for dear life, barely making it out of the round. Ward manages to stay on his feet for the rest of the fight, but loses a close but clear decision.

In early 2016, in his last fight at middleweight, GGG knocks out Billy Joe Saunders, thereby setting a new middleweight title-defense record of 21. He then sets his sights on DeGale, Ramirez, Jack and unifying the super middleweight title, as well as a possible one-off fight at 175lb against the winner of Ward-Kovalev.

As of August 11 2016, GGG's record reads 40(34)-0-0, including a record of 23(20)-0-0 in world title fights.

This scenario is reliant on all those guys being willing to take the risk, same as ever.

jamesmcdonnell wrote:This scenario is reliant on all those guys being willing to take the risk, same as ever.

Yup and his career boils down to that. He has fought whomever is willing to fight him. I just hope he gets Canelo, then moves up because I don't see him having the career he is capable of if he languishes at 160.

Tomasino wrote:

jamesmcdonnell wrote:This scenario is reliant on all those guys being willing to take the risk, same as ever.

Yup and his career boils down to that. He has fought whomever is willing to fight him. I just hope he gets Canelo, then moves up because I don't see him having the career he is capable of if he languishes at 160.

The canelo fight will never happen; or won't happen until GGG is old and they've seen signs he's slipping. It will probably only happen as a cash out fight for GGG, when Golden Boy figure Canelo will have a chance and they'll pay him well for his retirement.

I'd love GGG to kick the living shite out of Canelo.

Tomasino wrote:

jamesmcdonnell wrote:This scenario is reliant on all those guys being willing to take the risk, same as ever.

Yup and his career boils down to that. He has fought whomever is willing to fight him. I just hope he gets Canelo, then moves up because I don't see him having the career he is capable of if he languishes at 160.

The idea of the scenario is that GGG is a consistent PPV fighter after beating Chavez Jr in 2012- which while making him no more beatable, would make him more of a high risk, high reward proposition while ensuring his opponents are very well paid.

jezzamundo wrote:

Tomasino wrote:

jamesmcdonnell wrote:This scenario is reliant on all those guys being willing to take the risk, same as ever.

Yup and his career boils down to that. He has fought whomever is willing to fight him. I just hope he gets Canelo, then moves up because I don't see him having the career he is capable of if he languishes at 160.

The idea of the scenario is that GGG is a consistent PPV fighter after beating Chavez Jr in 2012- which while making him no more beatable, would make him more of a high risk, high reward proposition while ensuring his opponents are very well paid.

Ok, fair point.

some people have much time on their
hands.

I do think GGG's career was mismanaged, even if it's been tough for him to find high-level opponents now that he's well known.

For such an accomplished amateur who didn't turn pro until age 24, he was moved way too slowly. 5 years into his pro career he was a 20-0 titleholder but he hadn't faced anyone good and was still almost totally unknown outside of Germany and Kazakhstan. Compare that with Lomachenko who turned pro at a similar age and only 1 year into his career every pro boxing fan knew his name.

Now he's 34, well past his athletic prime, and we'll never know how good he really was.

man wrote:some people have much time on their
hands.

Unfortunately not in this case - major procrastination! Oh well, it was fun thinking about it.

The man is from Kazakhstan -- so it's like being from Cuba or Russia and having 350 amateur fights... You gain tremendous technical expertise by staying that long in the amateurs -- but getting started late is the trade off.. How many guys want to fight Luis Ortiz or Guillermo Rigondeaux or Vasyl Lomachenko??? ...

I have to give Golovkin credit for learning English, staying humble, learning how to smile, and getting a lot of commercial traction... I think he could give a lot of advice to Ortiz, Rigondeaux, and Lomachenko.

jamesmcdonnell wrote:This scenario is reliant on all those guys being willing to take the risk, same as ever.

He's actually been managed well.

jamesmcdonnell wrote:This scenario is reliant on all those guys being willing to take the risk, same as ever.

I think the “risk versus reward ratio” would almost certainly be much more favourable to potential Golovkin opponents if Haymon, Arum or De La Hoya promoted GGG, instead of K2.

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:He's actually been managed well.

I don’t know anything about Golovkin’s manager, but I do believe that there are better and wealthier promoters than K2.

What if he had been based in uk ? think he would be a lot richer right now

littlepug wrote:What if he had been based in uk ? think he would be a lot richer right now

Maybe that could force Saunders and Eubank in the ring. Wouldn't have helped with Canelo or Sergio. He's just in the unfortunate era where fighters don't have to challenge themselves to get rich.

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:

jamesmcdonnell wrote:This scenario is reliant on all those guys being willing to take the risk, same as ever.

He's actually been managed well.

that's how i see it. hardly your manager's
fault when people simply duck you. i haven't
seen or heard of any criticism when it comes
to his management.

man wrote:hardly your manager's
fault when people simply duck you. i haven't
seen or heard of any criticism when it comes
to his management.

Golovkin’s career stalled badly when he was promoted by Universum.

The main reason why the vast majority of GGG opponents declined to face him was because they claimed they weren’t being paid their worth by K2.

Indeed, if you review Golovkin’s paydays up until and including the Monroe Jr. fight, he was either earning less or on a par with fighters that were less talent, lower rated and attracted smaller HBO audiences.

Had Haymon, De La Hoya, Hearn or Arum promoted GGG, then there would be more money available to fund bigger fights, resulting in Golovkin’s career progressing at a much quicker rate.

I'm pretty happy with Golovkin's activity throughout most of his career. The main things I would've changed are...
-Spend more money on promotion, even if the amount of money you spend on advertising your fight exceeds the amount of money you bring-in as a result of the advertising. You can't just be worried about whether it's a profitable move in the short-term, you have to be thinking about how the money spent promoting this fight could lead to you drawing bigger crowds in your next 20 fights. A short-term net loss on marketing could turn into a massive net gain in the long term.
-Pay your opponents more. If you make a bunch of offers, and you're only offering your opponent a fair share of the purse, you might end-up fighting the #10 guy in the division. However, if you offer your potential opponents more than their fair share of the purse, and keep less for yourself, you might end-up fighting the #6 or #8 guy in the division. The better opponent you beat, the more famous you are, the more you rise in the p4p ranks, the bigger of a draw you are, the more money you make. If Golovkin was repeatedly fighting and beating divisional top 7 opponents back in 2011 and 2012, his drawing power would have grown quicker and he would have made more money in 2013-2016. Plus, once you beat better opponents and your drawing power increases, you no longer have to offer opponents a 55-60% share of a $500,000 purse; you will be able to offer them a 46-50% share of a $4 million purse, and they'll be eager to take it.

You cant manage a protected cherry picker!

I somewhat agree with those saying GGG has been well managed with regards to K2, but definitely not the first part of his career with Universum.

jezzamundo wrote:I somewhat agree with those saying GGG has been well managed with regards to K2, but definitely not the first part of his career with Universum.

FTR, I was talking about K2.

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:

jezzamundo wrote:I somewhat agree with those saying GGG has been well managed with regards to K2, but definitely not the first part of his career with Universum.

FTR, I was talking about K2.