By Lyle Fitzsimmons

Prowess can be as much about what you get away with as what you actually do.

But before the inbox fills up, let’s state a few undeniable facts off the top:

Golovkin is a beast. He comes to the ring impeccably prepared. He presents myriad problems for anyone he faces. He’s never looked anything less than in total control of every fight he’s had since cracking the public consciousness barrier a few years back.

And there’s no reason he wouldn’t be at least a 50/50 proposition – if not far better – to defeat any opponent that it’s within weight-class reason for him to meet.

The question, though, is where does fanfare end and reason begin.

For example, more than a few “journalists” have ground out more than a few digital column inches over the last several months, suggesting that the sport’s recently retired pound-for-pound kingpin – Floyd Mayweather Jr. – was nothing less than yellow for choosing not to meet the Kazakhstan native.

He’d do it if he were “The Best Ever,” they maintain, stubbornly ignoring that the TBE boast is far more about selling hats to rubes and far less about sealing legacies to purists. Ray Leonard did it, they insist, selectively ignoring that meeting a man who weighed-in 10 hours before a fight a generation ago is a bit different than meeting one with 36 hours between scale and introductions these days.

Lest anyone forget, the heaviest weigh-in of Mayweather’s career was in 2012, when he scaled 151 pounds for a successful super welterweight challenge of then-champ Miguel Cotto.

And as recently as last year, he hit the ring at just 148 pounds – only two pounds over his weigh-in number – for a rematch against Marcos Maidana.

Golovkin, meanwhile, has never been less than 158½ pounds on the scale as a pro, and his Saturday night dismantling of David Lemieux saw him a full 10½ pounds heavier – up from 159½ to 170 – than what he’d been at The Theater at Madison Square Garden shortly after noontime on Friday.

I concede that welterweight Leonard beating middleweight Hagler remains as amazing to me today as it did in 1987, even though there were only 13 pounds between their optimal fight-day weights and only a half-pound between what they actually saw on the scale that magical Monday.

But try as I might, I don’t recall anyone suggesting “Sugar” should have fought Michael Spinks instead, though that’s exactly – in today’s terms – what they’re implying Mayweather ought to do while negotiating a functional fight-night weight gap of 20 or more pounds.

“Mayweather’s career,” mused one writer, miffed when Mayweather passed Golovkin over as a potential farewell, “is a case study in careful management, unfulfilled potential and the tragic meanderings of a fighter who never really believed in himself enough to see how good he could be.”

That, by the way, describes a fighter who’s 49-0, with titles in five weight divisions and defeats of current or future Hall of Famers named Hernandez, Gatti, De La Hoya, Mosley, Cotto and Pacquiao.

Meanwhile, after beating a foe holding no better than the third-best belt in the division – and with a stoppage loss to a guy Golovkin had vaporized in less than five minutes a year ago – the very same keyboard barely stopped short of labeling Triple-G, ahem, the best ever.

“Golovkin is so much more than just a scary puncher. In a way that makes him even scarier,” it lauded. “He’s not a monster. He’s a weapon, and as good a one right now as boxing has ever seen.”

To that, I suggest maybe just a little more evidence is in order.

Not, though, a whipping of Cotto or Alvarez – both of whom Mayweather has already beaten.

Instead, if the folks who spend Twitter time wondering if Golovkin could KO a Sith Lord want their man to truly get over, perhaps it’s time they suggest he take on a Leonard-level task of his own.

Forget Cotto, Canelo, Mayweather or even Ward. And go straight to Sergey Kovalev.

You know, the light heavyweight champion. Two divisions up, just like Golovkin is from Mayweather.

And, considering the Russian weighed 185 the morning of his Bernard Hopkins fight last fall, the chasm of 15 same-day pounds isn’t even as wide as what Floyd is supposedly too chicken to jump.

A pair of fighters who were born into republics in what’s now the former Soviet Union. A pair of fighters with amateur pedigrees that consist of more than 200 bouts. And a pair of fighters who’ve gone on to become world champions in their respective weight classes.

If that doesn’t make a match between Kovalev and Golovkin about as close to a no-brainer as there is in boxing, well... I can’t imagine what does. Not to mention the added intrigue of Golovkin’s trainer, Abel Sanchez, once claiming Kovalev was afraid when the fighters sparred together.

They’re both HBO commodities, too, which makes the get-together an ideal television possibility, and suggests it’d be harder to find reasons not to do it than it would be to get it done.

If they learned math alongside creative writing, it’ll make just as much sense to the sycophants, too.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

This week’s title-fight schedule:

SATURDAY

IBO super middleweight title – Huntington, New York
Zac Dunn (champion/No. 25 IWBR) vs. Denis Douglin (No. 44 IBO/No. 100 IWBR)
Dunn (18-0, 15 KO): First title defense; First fight outside Australia
Douglin (19-4, 12 KO): First title fight; Seventh fight in New York (5-1, 3 KO)
Fitzbitz says: The Australian incumbent is making his first trip away from the homeland, and it’s probably no coincidence that his foe has been starched by his two best opponents. Dunn in 8

WBO junior welterweight title – Omaha, Nebraska
Terence Crawford (champion/No. 2 IWBR) vs. Dierry Jean (No. 6 WBO/Unranked IWBR)
Crawford (26-0, 18 KO): First title defense; Third fight in Omaha (2-0, 1 KO)
Jean (29-1, 20 KO): Second title fight (0-1); Fourth fight in the United States (2-1, 1 KO)
Fitzbitz says: Jean was a credible, albeit unsuccessful, challenger for another 140-pound title in 2014, but the problem he encounters here is that his second foe is better than the first. Crawford in 10

Last week’s picks: 5-1 (WIN: Selby, Komanisi, Golovkin, Gonzalez, Nietes; LOSE: Kameda)
2015 picks record: 70-20 (77.7 percent)
Overall picks record: 709-243 (74.4 percent)

NOTE: Fights previewed are only those involving a sanctioning body's full-fledged title-holder – no interim, diamond, silver, etc. Fights for WBA "world championships" are only included if no "super champion" exists in the weight class.

Lyle Fitzsimmons has covered professional boxing since 1995 and written a weekly column for Boxing Scene since 2008. He is a full voting member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Reach him at fitzbitz@msn.com or follow him on Twitter – @fitzbitz.