Who is GGG, Canelo Álvarez’s opponent in his next fight?
In what will be the third meeting between the two, there’s a lot to unpack with the Kazakhstani fighter and that’s why we’re taking an up close look at who he is.
With anticipation now at fever pitch, we take a look at who ‘GGG’ is and why this could just be the biggest fight of Canelo Álvarez’s boxing career.
Who is GGG?
Born on April 8th, 1982, Gennady Gennadyevich Golovkin, also referred to as ‘GGG,’ ‘God of War,’ and ‘Golden Boy,’ is a Kazakhstani professional boxer. As an amateur, Golovkin would win his first gold medal at the 2003 ‘World Amateur Boxing Championships’ in the middleweight division. Just a year later, the young talent would claim a silver medal in the same category at the 2004 ‘Summer Olympics.’ Naturally, the professional realm was his next stop and so in 2006, Golovkin turned pro in 2006 and would go on to win his first major world championship in 2010, after he defeated Milton Núñez to win the WBA interim middleweight title. Yet, it didn’t stop there as just one year later he became the WBA (Regular) champion.
Since that time, Golovkin has achieved some incredible feats in the ring, including holding multiple middleweight world championships, becoming a two-time unified champion - he held the IBF title since 2019 and the WBA (Super) title since April 2022. Prior to that, GGG had held the unified WBA (Super), WBC and IBF titles between 2014 and 2018. In addition, he’s also a two-time IBO middleweight champion. Interestingly, Golovkin was ranked as the world’s best boxer, pound for pound, from September 2017 to September 2018 by The Ring magazine. Presently, he is ranked as the world’s eighth best active boxer, pound for pound.
What style does Gennady Golovkin have?
Known to be extremely calculating inside the ring, Golovkin is well known for his exceptionally powerful and precise punching. Along with his balance and methodical movement in tight spaces, GGG is truly a pure pressure fighter. His streak of 23 knockouts between 2008 and 2017 is clear evidence that he’s not a fighter to be trifled with. Indeed, Golovkin still holds the highest knockout-to-win ratio – 89.7% – in middleweight championship history. If you’re wondering, he can also definitely take a punch. Said to have one of the strongest chins in the business, the so called ‘God of War’ has never been knocked down or otherwise stopped in a total of 394 fights - 44 as a professional and 350 as an amateur.
How do Álvarez and Golovkin match up?
When Canelo Álvarez and Gennady Golovkin step into the ring on September 17th, it will be the third meeting between the pair and without doubt probably the most anticipated. Fight fans will recall their first meeting back in September 2017. After a highly charged bout, it was called a split draw. Fans and pundits alike immediately began to rage and even more so when the judges’ scorecards were revealed with one judge scoring 118-110 in Canelo’s favor and the other two scoring 115-113 for Golovkin and 114-114 respectively. Needless to say, demands for a rematch weren’t long in coming.
That rematch occurred just a year later on September 15th, 2018. After some rescheduling, due to Álvarez’s brief suspension for a failed drug test the fight went ahead and this time there was once again intense controversy. With the judges’ scorecards in the spotlight once more, fans and pundits were incensed by the scoring of 115-113 from two judges in Álvarez’s favor and 114-114 from the third. Canelo was called the victor by unanimous decision, though the large majority of media outlets which carried the fight, scored it in Golovkin’s favor. This of course brings us to the present, with Álvarez coming off of only the second loss of his career and Golovkin looking to beat the only fighter to hand him a loss.