By Edward Chaykovsky

John David Jackson, best known right now as the trainer for WBO/WBA/IBF light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev, feels Gennady "GGG" Golovkin (34-0, 31KOs) is being overhyped to a certain degree.

Jackson, a former middleweight champion during his fighting days in the 90's, shakes his head when he hears people make statements that Golovkin is the best fighter in the history of the middleweight division and would beat Hall of Famers like Marvin Hagler.

Jackson feels the entire middleweight division is a far cry from the same level of talent when compared to the days of Hagler or other top time periods at 160-pounds.

"I hate to say this but there’s more hype to Golovkin than people realize. He’s good but he hasn’t fought the best in his division, but that’s not his fault, I’m not blaming him for that. But when you hear guys say that he’s better than Hagler, no, he wouldn’t have beat anyone like that," Jackson told On The Ropes Boxing Radio.

"He’s good now in his era, but unfortunately for him in his era there’s not too many top middleweights, so he can run it. If he can fight these guys and meet them all, he would probably come out the winner."

Jackson says a prime Roy Jones or a prime James Toney - both former titleholders at 160 - would have beaten Golovkin quite easily.

"When people say Golovkin would beat Marvin Hagler, they’re either smoking something or drinking something or they’re just not with boxing at all," Jackson said.

"If there was a middleweight Roy Jones when Roy was younger, or a guy like James Toney, they would have taken him to school because Golovkin is strong but you don’t see the skill level that he has to show because he mainly out powers most of the fighters that he goes against."