Ring Observer Boxing by Scoop Malinowski
A sports editor from Kazakhstan asked me this question…
Question: Hello Scoop! How are you? Gennady Golovkin has been nominated for induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. I wanted to ask what you think about it?
Scoop Malinowski: Gennady Golovkin is one of the greatest champions I ever saw in boxing. He was a perfect fighting wrecking machine who made every opponent look second rate. I still suspect he had to play soft on Canelo to get those big money fights at the end of his career, so those performances don’t count. Since Canelo, Floyd, Cotto, Martinez, all ducked prime Golovkin, sadly we might have never seen his greatest performances. I think the International Hall of Fame induction of Golovkin will be bittersweet for him because the sport failed to feed him the best, big name challengers – because he would have destroyed them all. And the boxing establishment just did not want to see a foreign man from Kazakhstan as “the face of boxing.” I rank Golovkin as one of the greatest champions the sport ever witnessed, with Usyk, Duran, Leonard, Robinson, Pacquiao, Tyson, Ali, Lennox Lewis, Hagler, Calzaghe, Hopkins, Crawford.
