By Steve Kim, photo by Tom Hogan/Hoganphotos
On Saturday night, Gennady "GGG" Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) successfully defended his WBA, WBC, IBF and IBO middleweight titles against the game Daniel Jacobs (32-2, 29 KOs) at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
But while he came out victorious, it wasn't his most critically acclaimed performance. Golovkin who usually keeps a busy schedule (at least in comparison to most championship-level boxers) had just two fights in 2016 and hadn't fought since September when he traveled to the O2 Arena in London to stop Kell Brook in five rounds.
For Golovkin it was an unusually long layoff.
When asked if the layoff might have been a factor, Golovkin's trainer, Abel Sanchez stated:
"Prior to the fight we talked about him not fighting bigger names, it wasn't really motivational for him and we did have that off-time in December, we fought in September. He had been off six months, it could have been that. That's not making an excuse but he didn't look as well."
"He's not a machine so he's not going to look perfect every time. I think the people are putting too much into the knockout streak. Nobody has ever done it so maybe it was special, but for us as a team it was just as important because for Gennady's sake he knows he can go a hard twelve and still be strong at the end of the fight. So there's a silver lining to everything but there was too much emphasis on the knockout streak."
Golovkin had come into this bout having stopped his previous 23 foes but was extended the twelve round distance for the first time in his career.
"That wasn't our concern, that was never our focus to make sure we knocked him out," continued Sanchez. "Our focus was to make sure we get the win."
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.
