By Cliff Rold

From the purist perspective, it’s still Carlos Monzon.

From 1970-77, Monzon defended the Middleweight crown a record 14 consecutive times. His title wasn’t technically ‘undisputed’ for the entirety of his reign. In his era, there were only two major sanctioning bodies (the WBC and WBA). In 1974, Monzon was stripped of the WBC title that ended up on the waist of Rodrigo Valdes.

Monzon made that a footnote to his reign with wins over Valdes in his last two professional fights. Monzon’s claim to the lineal crown, traceable at that point to the 1963 reign of Dick Tiger, was never lost in the ring and confirmed by the Valdes triumphs.

From the purist perspective, the number remains 14.  

For almost everyone else, it’s 20.

That’s the number of IBF title defenses Bernard Hopkins made from 1995 to 2005. Hopkins road to 20 was much different than Monzon’s road to 14. There was no clear champion to wrest the title from like Nino Benvenuti. At least according to Ring Magazine, Hopkins wasn’t even regarded as the best Middleweight in the world after stopping Segundo Mercado in their rematch to win his first title.

Jorge Castro was.

Oh what we don’t know until we do…

For Hopkins, the long job he put in made any other titlist inconsequential and restored meaning to the idea of ‘World Champion’ in the division. By the time he was done, Hopkins had won every one of the major sanctioning body titles in his class and defeated most of the best fellow title claimants along the way.

His domination was so complete at the end that, for some, it made every defense legitimate in retrospect.

In comic book terms, Hopkins retconned the origins of his title.

Gennady Golovkin would have a lot of work cut out for him to ever meet the purist standard in challenging the Monzon record. Depending on how one measures his reign to date as WBA/IBO titlist, he’s getting in range of Hopkins in a hurry.

Amidst the excitement of this week’s press conference in New York, and news of fast ticket sales, the most significant sporting element of Golovkin’s October clash with IBF titlist David Lemieux is that it is his first unification bout in the division.

If he wins, it will be Golovkin’s 15th successful defense and he’d have two of four major sanctioning body belts. It would put Golovkin both ahead, and behind, the Hopkins curve.

It would put him ahead in terms of age and time. Golovkin, at 33, is younger than Hopkins, then 36, was when he won his first unification bout against WBC titlist Keith Holmes. He has had a share (more on that in a moment) of the WBA title since August 2010, making the length of time to his first unification bout just more than five years. Hopkins waited two weeks shy of six years between the Mercado rematch and Holmes.   

It would put him behind Hopkins in terms of historical recognition as division champion. At fifteen defenses, Hopkins was taking a victory lap against Carl Daniels to surpass Monzon after stopping WBA champ Felix Trinidad to win the 2001 Middleweight unification tournament. Four defenses later, he stopped Oscar De La Hoya to add the WBO belt, becoming the first man since the birth of the WBO to hold all four major sanctioning body titles at the same time in any class.

Undisputed indeed.

Now there will be some sort-of purists who, while okay with citing Hopkins as the record holder at Middleweight over Monzon, will point out that Golovkin’s defense numbers are inflated. He hasn’t been the only WBA titlist his entire reign. His initial WBA claim was interim and well into 2012 his claim was the equivalent of Daniel Jacobs WBA claim right now. Golovkin is the “Super” or top champion of the WBA now just as Felix Sturm was “Super” WBA Champion during Golovkin’s first five title defenses. He only gained top WBA recognition when then-IBF titlist Daniel Geale vacated the WBA title he won from Sturm.

If one is of the inclination to ignore WBA sub-titles, then Golovkin isn’t at fourteen heading into Lemieux. He’s at nine.

If one is of the inclination to get a headache from all of this, well, hey, welcome to boxing. Clearly, this takes some getting used to.

Perhaps the biggest difference between Golovkin now and Hopkins heading into Holmes is perceptual stakes. When Hopkins entered the Middleweight tournament, he was assumed headed towards the finals. Most also assumed he would be a critical stepping stone, but just a stepping stone, for Trinidad. They were wrong. Hopkins, in unifying the title, won the fight for validation.

Golovkin is fighting for confirmation.

Many in boxing already assume he’s the best Middleweight in the world. There are plenty of calls for him to skip unification and move up in weight instead, so strong is the idea that today’s shallow pool t Middleweight is almost beneath his talent. The lineal crown re-established by Hopkins belongs to Miguel Cotto. One would be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks Cotto is a threat to Golovkin.

If he is to stay at Middleweight, unification is the last thing missing for Golovkin in his era at Middleweight. He needs seven more wins to pass Hopkins. Clean up the titles, clean out the class, and almost everyone would come around on Golovkin’s 21 as the new title defense record.

Except the purists.

They’ll still have Monzon.

Cliff’s Notes…

Not sure where this Oscar talk for Straight Outta Compton is coming from but it was certainly worth going to see. Anyone who grew up listening to N.W.A and the ensuing west coast sound will be taken back. And Cube’s son looks so much like him sometimes, it’s eerie…Glowacki-Huck was the best fight seen from these eyes this year and that’s having seen both Martinez-Salido I and Matthysse-Provodnikov. This could be one of those years where the outlets don’t agree on one fight at year’s end…Andrzej Fonfara-Nathan Cleverly could be a really good fight…Count the vote here, for the nothing it’s worth, against a comeback for Antonio Margarito…There is a temptation to buy the Shane Mosley-Ricardo Mayorga rematch just out of respect for how hard Mosley is hustling. He’s showing some energy as a promoter.

Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com