Team GGG were saying GGG could beat anyone from 154 to 175, and would fight anyone from 154 to 175, and that no one either 168 or 175 and below, I forget, would even go the distance with GGG.
What happened there, eh? Even little Canelo went the distance... twice. And Danny Jacobs too. And Dereyvanchenko too. Every half decent opponent even at 160 went the distance! Let alone 168 or 175! What a disappointing career.
But let's look ahead instead of to the past. In boxing terms, Beterbiev is old, and GGG is too. Meanwhile, Beterbiev vs Canelo keeps getting talked about as a viable fight at 175. GGG was competitive with Canelo in both fights. I mean, it looked like both were pulling their punches, but maybe Beterbiev can do that too so then it would still be a legitimate comparison.
I think as far as a "big drama show," emphasis on "show," for the crowd, GGG vs Beterbiev at 175 could still be as fun as any of these other pairings they can make from modern boxing's shallow talent pool. Already, most the interesting matchups in that weight neighborhood were squandered. Kovalev vs Stevenson. Kovalev vs Ward with fair officiating. Stevenson vs Ward. Beterbiev vs Ward. Beterbiev vs Stevenson. Beterbiev vs Kovalev. Gvozdyk vs Ward, Beterbiev, or Kovalev. Gvozdyk vs GGG, Stevenson vs GGG, Ward vs GGG, Kovalev vs GGG.
GGG vs Beterbiev might be the last chance to make one of those matchups in this era. Do you guys want to see it?
Yeah but we were talking about Canelo. He got caught for clenbuterol. Is that a steroid or a PED? And you were using that as an excuse why GGG looked like **** both fights vs him. But if you are only counting steroids, then Canelo hasn't been caught for steroids either. He is just as clean, officially, of "steroids" as GGG is, so how can you use that as an excuse for GGG's performances vs him?
Whereas I am talking about all PEDs. In my opinion, either all the top guys in boxing use PEDs, or none of them do. And PEDs definitely help with stamina. There are are probably steroids that help with stamina too, such as steroid inhalers, but I am happy to leave that part of your post to the side so we can stay on the main point.
? I don't think GGG looked like sh,it in both fights vs him. As usual you don't make much sense.
GGG beat him twice, it's as clear as day. Canelo wasn't active enough in either fight, because compared to GGG he has serious stamina issues, and GGG is way more active than him round in round out.
A lot of guys are probably on PEDs, some guys are probably on designer stuff though, like Canelo and his team surely are.
I said steroids, not PEDS.
Yeah but we were talking about Canelo. He got caught for clenbuterol. Is that a steroid or a PED? And you were using that as an excuse why GGG looked like sh1t both fights vs him. But if you are only counting steroids, then Canelo hasn't been caught for steroids either. He is just as clean, officially, of "steroids" as GGG is, so how can you use that as an excuse for GGG's performances vs him?
Whereas I am talking about all PEDs. In my opinion, either all the top guys in boxing use PEDs, or none of them do. And PEDs definitely help with stamina. There are are probably steroids that help with stamina too, such as steroid inhalers, but I am happy to leave that part of your post to the side so we can stay on the main point.
Better yet, is there any word on who GGG is fighting next? He hasn't fought at all in 2021. Is he still boxing?
Been common knowledge that he is fighting Murata at the end of the year in December. Been basically agreed upon since March
Where did you hear that? There is a PED to help with everything. Not only are there PEDs that help with stamina, but the exact PED that Canelo got caught for, clenbuterol, helps with stamina by leaning out the muscle and making it require less oxygen to use the muscle for longer periods of time.
So what are you even talking about man. PEDs are great for stamina. They let you train longer to build up your stamina. They let you recover quicker. They lean out the muscle. Some PEDs can increase lung capacity. Im not even a chemist and I've heard of all this stuff. Now imagine the 1,000 other PEDs I haven't even heard of. Your statement is absurd. Where the heck did you hear that **** lol? There are PEDs to help with every aspect of performance, even the mental side (the drug called adderal, for example, helps with mental focus).
I said steroids, not PEDS.
Steroids = muscle mass. Muscle mass = harder for the body to get oxygen to those muscles. As a result, people with very muscular physiques, especially as a result of steroids - since steroids bypass the training needed to get that physique in a natural way, which would aid with things like stamina - have poor stamina. This is not a debate, it's just common knowledge.
You admit in your post that you don't really know what you're talking about. Just leave it at that, no need to write all that other garbage. You're the type of guy who thinks he knows everything about something, if he just knows anything about it. You are not very smart.
It is well known that many steroids do not help at all with endurance, but instead hinder endurance.
Where did you hear that? There is a PED to help with everything. Not only are there PEDs that help with stamina, but the exact PED that Canelo got caught for, clenbuterol, helps with stamina by leaning out the muscle and making it require less oxygen to use the muscle for longer periods of time.
So what are you even talking about man. PEDs are great for stamina. They let you train longer to build up your stamina. They let you recover quicker. They lean out the muscle. Some PEDs can increase lung capacity. Im not even a chemist and I've heard of all this stuff. Now imagine the 1,000 other PEDs I haven't even heard of. Your statement is absurd. Where the heck did you hear that sh1t lol? There are PEDs to help with every aspect of performance, even the mental side (the drug called adderal, for example, helps with mental focus).
Exactly, that's the problem. I was literally one of his most active supporters online. Team GGG said he would fight anyone from 154 to 175, and I was the fool who believed them. It seems like now he's lost the majority of his fans, and I almost get the sense that his team doesn't understand why. Because they made a fool of all his fans! They hyped him as the original Star Wars movies, but then what they delivered was the Disney Star Wars movies! :cool:
But seriously though, it's kind of true.
And the whole time, the excuse they gave was that they had to wait for Canelo at 160. But now even after they got their two Canelo fights, and GGG performed terribly in both of them compared to his previous performances and capability, and now even after Canelo left 160 to boot, he's still at 160!!!!
I mean we saw from both Canelo vs GGG fights, let alone both their entire careers. GGG's one full power shot, to head or body, hurts Canelo more than five or ten Canelo shots, in combination all at once, to GGG's head or body. So if those were real fights, and if GGG vs Canelo is a real fight, then all GGG has to do is go in like Antonio Margarito (except GGG is way better, on top of it all) and beat him down like Margarito-Cotto 1. That's the perfect comparison because Cotto's style and characteristics are very similar to Canelo. GGG is way better than Margarito, and Canelo is slightly better than Cotto, but otherwise it a perfect comparison, except with GGG vs Canelo it shouldn't even take half as long because of Canelo's stamina and GGG's superior power and skills compared to Margarito.
But instead, for both fights, GGG was arm "punching," pitty pat, no body shots, the head shots were all sort of arm punches. All GGG had to do to KO Canelo, if the fights were real, was go in head first and make it a war. Take one, or even two, to give one, but make sure the "one" that you do give is a full power punch, like GGG supposedly threw in all his fights before, not pitty patter bs. Not only should those hurt Canelo even when he is fresh, considering that Liam Smith hurt Canelo not long before GGG fought him, especially to the body, but Canelo has a stamina problem to boot!
Really, Canelo is made to order for GGG! Shorter reach. Worse footwork. Worse stamina. For a stamina machine like GGG, a swarmer, a pressure-boxer puncher, that should be an easy fight! Maybe not for the first 4 rounds while the guy can counter you, but ultimately, what does it matter if he can't hurt you and the points he scores won't matter anyway when you stop him and the scorecards become irrelevant? It's just a bad style matchup for Canelo. When you have bad stamina, someone who can come at you all night and never stop throwing punches, and who can hurt you and drain your stamina on top of it, but who you can't hurt back, that's almost an impossible fight to win.
And yet, GGG let him have an argument for winning or at least tying the fight not once, but twice!!! It doesn't even make sense, if you understand boxing. And in the second fight, GGG was even backing up from him. Canelo came to him, which should really be irrelevant either way in this case, but if anything it just makes the job even easier, and instead of going to war, GGG backed up!
What happened to GGG supposedly taking punches on purpose? What happened to "big drama show"? If Margarito ran from Cotto instead of pressuring, and only threw pitty pat arm punches instead of going to war, Cotto would have beaten him too!
Even at 40 years old, unless GGG's chin is completely shot, he should be able to KO Canelo within 8 rounds by going at him like Margarito, Salido, etc, from the opening bell. You know, Mexican style. Or was that just one more fraudulent marketing promise to add to the list?
Look, just because Team GGG said he would fight and beat anyone from 154 to 175, and inferred he was clearly superior to Sergey Kovalev the #1 light heavyweight, doesn't mean his fans are entitled to demand that he go knock out Andre Ward, Kovalev, Beterbiev, etc, all in one round at 175, or otherwise abandon support for him. Of course not. But he didn't even deliver at 160 or 154!!! Let alone 168 or 175!!!! So on that basis, I do feel like yeah, GGG's fans are entitled to say, and really just admit to ourselves, yeah, we got taken for a ride. This guy was a talented, charismatic boxer, fun to watch, but at the end of the day, a lot of it was just marketing and hype, and as much as he talked about goals like undisputed, or beating the best guys from 154 to 175, his actions suggest he never cared about any of it, and it was all bs, and he was just waiting to fight Canelo for money.
Even before the first Canelo fight, GGG's trainer, Abel Sanchez, was talking about a trilogy. To me, that's very suspect when you have a fighter who is a KO machine and has never needed a rematch before. Why would that even be on your mind that you would have to fight this guy three times when you are so used to dominating opponents and only needing to fight them once? Very, very suspect, IMO. I think GGG will get his fans back only if he gets the third Canelo fight and goes in and does it like everyone was expecting him to the first fight, and then moves up in weight and a big legacy win at least at 168, maybe 175. If he can pull Ward out of retirement and beat him at either 168 or 175 or somewhere in between, after KOing Canelo, GGG might become the most popular boxer in the world. If not, I think his "boxing" career will go down as "could have, should have, but time to move on."
Hid gameplan vs Canelo rubbed me the wrong way.... He could have stopped him during the first fight but chose to not turn things up or throw any body shots once Canelo started to gas. He seemed to be ok with doing just enough then cried when he got robbed by the star fighter.
And that's just one thing that rubbed me the wrong way.
One more piece of marketing bs: GGG is almost 40 years old, and his fans are still waiting for a real "big drama show." His fights vs Canelo had almost no drama. Lots of missing by both guys, no knockdowns, quantity of pitty pat punches from GGG vs quality of power punches by Canelo, which again makes no sense because GGG is the more powerful puncher than Canelo, he has the better stamina, the better reach, the better legs, the better chin, the better boxing IQ and judge of distance and timing. No comebacks except when GGG, after boxing non-aggressively to a huge lead on the cards in fight one, suddenly decides to pressure the last three rounds and forget all defense and let Canelo tee off on him and score points and even up the fight, instead of just continuing on and winning wide on the cards. That never made any sense either. When GGG already "made his bed" in the first fight by throwing no body punches and just winning a points fight, suddenly he abandons his fight that is at least winning, even if it is letting Canelo survive, to give the fight away, but then in the second fight, or you could say early in both fights, when he was supposed to go to war and gas out Canelo and make the KO victory inevitable for the mid to late rounds, he applied no pressure and barely any power attack especially to the body.
Am I saying Canelo does nothing better than GGG? No Im not. Canelo bends lower, relies more on head movement for his defense and counters more (which are things GGG should have been doing anyway, just basic stuff he also knows how to do but did not employ), and has faster hands at this point in his career. That's it. Those are his only advantages. Everything else, GGG is better. And yet, I can't even say he was "robbed" in the second fight. He fought like **** in both fights, honestly. The only thing he did better than Canelo in either fights was have better work rate, which is really saying nothing when you're fighting an opponent with bad work rate to start with, and when most your work is low quality arm punches anyway.
I mean, GGG outjabbed him in both fights also, but so what? Is GGG supposed to be Paulie Malignaggi? What good is the jab when you're supposed to KO this guy if it's not setting up full power punches to the body and head? Canelo is a guy with bad stamina to start with. Body punches drain the stamina. So GGG's entire game plan should have started with walking down Canelo and landing tons of power shots to the body the first few rounds. Once that happens the fight is over. If it's not over immediately, it will be over once Canelo's stamina reaches "0" but there are still five rounds left in the fight and GGG is in the other corner. I mean it's just basic stuff.
So that's another reason GGG lost his fans. Not only did his actions in the fights he took, and his performances in those fights, not match the hype or the marketing, but they didn't match logic either! They no longer suspended disbelief. Something was off. Something did not make sense. It's like a movie where the story makes no sense, the plot is out of order, you can't relate to the characters at all. It's just "off" so what do you do? You turn the movie "off" altogether!
Dude this is just boxing 101 - the better/stronger the opponent in front of you is, the more often you go to the jab. It's the safest and best punch to use, to measure distance and make sure you don't get caught. Going to the body is especially risky, if you feel your opponent has the speed and power to make you pay for that.
If GGG isn't on the same **** that Canelo is, how come Canelo has worse stamina than GGG? PEDs allow you to reach levels of performance that are not even possible without PEDs. GGG is still a physically better athlete than Canelo in too many ways for me to think one is doing anything differently, as far as "nutrition," than the other. Either they are all on PEDs, or none of them are, in my opinion.
Bottom line, enough excuses. Yes Canelo is way smaller than GGG, in terms of height, width, and length. GGG has a much bigger frame, and has more muscle also. Canelo might have bigger legs above the knees, maybe. That would be it. GGG is physically bigger in every other way that I am aware of, just compare them side by side. If you want to say Canelo's muscle weighs more or something, who knows, but at most that would even it out. GGG definitely isn't smaller than Canelo, that's for darn sure.
GGG fans are sick of a career full of excuses. "Jacobs rehydrated more" etc etc. GGG was the A-side, why was that allowed to happen in the first place? When GGG was the B-side vs Canelo, he had excuses why he was at a disadvantage. When GGG was the A-side vs Danny Jacobs, he still had excuses why he was at a disadvantage. GGG is the only A-side I've ever heard of to have excuses why the contract that he agreed to was not fair. As a GGG fan I eventually got sick of the excuses. "He was sick vs Kell Brook." "Not 100% the first Canelo fight." "Sick vs Dereyvanchenko." Blah blah blah. Get the Canelo trilogy fight, and do your talking in the ring. Then go get one more name to top it off. Floyd vs GGG at 154 was the real legacy fight, but maybe Floyd is too old now. If that's the case, I'd say Ward has to be the one. Either Ward, or someone else at 168 or 175 needs to beat Ward, and then GGG beat him. That's because Ward officially got the win vs Kovalev, the best guy at 175 before, so now someone needs to beat Ward for them to be the best in that weight range.
It is well known that many steroids do not help at all with endurance, but instead hinder endurance.
I don't remember Ward having any problem with Kovalev's power. It looked like Kovalev was pulling his punches, including on that knockdown that should have been a KO except he inexplicably slapped it instead of punching with his fist. And in case I had any doubts that those fights were bs, Kovalev pulled out the same **** against Canelo in an even more blatant and obvious way. Just my opinion, but my guess is they scripted that ridiculous finish in the second fight, with the low blows, as a way to distract from the fact the whole fights were fake. It also would explain why Kovalev put up so little resistance to the unfair tactics, and then fell on the ropes in just the perfect way that the ref could call it a TKO rather than just a knockdown.
Really, the whole "saga" looks suspect in hindsight. Kovalev just so happened to develop a bad drinking problem right at the time he was training to fight the P4P #2 fighter in the world? And also right around when he had a young child. At the very least Kovalev would have cut it down just to prove Team Ward wrong for calling him out about his drinking problem, because he supposedly disliked them so much. Or was that just an act too? Wouldn't surprise me. Just my opinion guys.
I saw Ward feeling the effects of the jab and power for the first 6 rounds in fight 1. I think Kovalev never mentally recovered from the robbery of the first fight. He trains his whole career for that fight and moment, admitting going in that he didn't know if he could beat Ward - and then he beats him convincingly, dominating the fight half of the fight and having a close last 6 rounds.
Ward was able to deal with the power better in fight 2 but Kovalev also didn't handle things great in that fight - the roughhouse tactics and also just the overall mentality going in. As you said, the lowblows to end the fight mar the fight overall. Ward was getting outboxed up until that point but he landed a beautiful right hand in that last round, shame it ended the way it did really.
Very unsatisfying results in both of those fights, as far as leaving you feeling like you got a solid outcome.
little canelo lol. yeah hes so little! came down in weight to fight ggg, roided to the gills, fights at 168 and 175 now. the little tiny man! the classic "im a big fan of fighter x" and then proceeds to rip them thread
If GGG isn't on the same sh1t that Canelo is, how come Canelo has worse stamina than GGG? PEDs allow you to reach levels of performance that are not even possible without PEDs. GGG is still a physically better athlete than Canelo in too many ways for me to think one is doing anything differently, as far as "nutrition," than the other. Either they are all on PEDs, or none of them are, in my opinion.
Bottom line, enough excuses. Yes Canelo is way smaller than GGG, in terms of height, width, and length. GGG has a much bigger frame, and has more muscle also. Canelo might have bigger legs above the knees, maybe. That would be it. GGG is physically bigger in every other way that I am aware of, just compare them side by side. If you want to say Canelo's muscle weighs more or something, who knows, but at most that would even it out. GGG definitely isn't smaller than Canelo, that's for darn sure.
GGG fans are sick of a career full of excuses. "Jacobs rehydrated more" etc etc. GGG was the A-side, why was that allowed to happen in the first place? When GGG was the B-side vs Canelo, he had excuses why he was at a disadvantage. When GGG was the A-side vs Danny Jacobs, he still had excuses why he was at a disadvantage. GGG is the only A-side I've ever heard of to have excuses why the contract that he agreed to was not fair. As a GGG fan I eventually got sick of the excuses. "He was sick vs Kell Brook." "Not 100% the first Canelo fight." "Sick vs Dereyvanchenko." Blah blah blah. Get the Canelo trilogy fight, and do your talking in the ring. Then go get one more name to top it off. Floyd vs GGG at 154 was the real legacy fight, but maybe Floyd is too old now. If that's the case, I'd say Ward has to be the one. Either Ward, or someone else at 168 or 175 needs to beat Ward, and then GGG beat him. That's because Ward officially got the win vs Kovalev, the best guy at 175 before, so now someone needs to beat Ward for them to be the best in that weight range.
little canelo lol. yeah hes so little! came down in weight to fight ggg, roided to the gills, fights at 168 and 175 now. the little tiny man! the classic "im a big fan of fighter x" and then proceeds to rip them thread
One more piece of marketing bs: GGG is almost 40 years old, and his fans are still waiting for a real "big drama show." His fights vs Canelo had almost no drama. Lots of missing by both guys, no knockdowns, quantity of pitty pat punches from GGG vs quality of power punches by Canelo, which again makes no sense because GGG is the more powerful puncher than Canelo, he has the better stamina, the better reach, the better legs, the better chin, the better boxing IQ and judge of distance and timing. No comebacks except when GGG, after boxing non-aggressively to a huge lead on the cards in fight one, suddenly decides to pressure the last three rounds and forget all defense and let Canelo tee off on him and score points and even up the fight, instead of just continuing on and winning wide on the cards. That never made any sense either. When GGG already "made his bed" in the first fight by throwing no body punches and just winning a points fight, suddenly he abandons his fight that is at least winning, even if it is letting Canelo survive, to give the fight away, but then in the second fight, or you could say early in both fights, when he was supposed to go to war and gas out Canelo and make the KO victory inevitable for the mid to late rounds, he applied no pressure and barely any power attack especially to the body.
Am I saying Canelo does nothing better than GGG? No Im not. Canelo bends lower, relies more on head movement for his defense and counters more (which are things GGG should have been doing anyway, just basic stuff he also knows how to do but did not employ), and has faster hands at this point in his career. That's it. Those are his only advantages. Everything else, GGG is better. And yet, I can't even say he was "robbed" in the second fight. He fought like sh1t in both fights, honestly. The only thing he did better than Canelo in either fights was have better work rate, which is really saying nothing when you're fighting an opponent with bad work rate to start with, and when most your work is low quality arm punches anyway.
I mean, GGG outjabbed him in both fights also, but so what? Is GGG supposed to be Paulie Malignaggi? What good is the jab when you're supposed to KO this guy if it's not setting up full power punches to the body and head? Canelo is a guy with bad stamina to start with. Body punches drain the stamina. So GGG's entire game plan should have started with walking down Canelo and landing tons of power shots to the body the first few rounds. Once that happens the fight is over. If it's not over immediately, it will be over once Canelo's stamina reaches "0" but there are still five rounds left in the fight and GGG is in the other corner. I mean it's just basic stuff.
So that's another reason GGG lost his fans. Not only did his actions in the fights he took, and his performances in those fights, not match the hype or the marketing, but they didn't match logic either! They no longer suspended disbelief. Something was off. Something did not make sense. It's like a movie where the story makes no sense, the plot is out of order, you can't relate to the characters at all. It's just "off" so what do you do? You turn the movie "off" altogether!
What has GGG ever done to make you believe he would take a fight like this let alone at this age and obvious physical decline
Exactly, that's the problem. I was literally one of his most active supporters online. Team GGG said he would fight anyone from 154 to 175, and I was the fool who believed them. It seems like now he's lost the majority of his fans, and I almost get the sense that his team doesn't understand why. Because they made a fool of all his fans! They hyped him as the original Star Wars movies, but then what they delivered was the Disney Star Wars movies! :cool:
But seriously though, it's kind of true.
And the whole time, the excuse they gave was that they had to wait for Canelo at 160. But now even after they got their two Canelo fights, and GGG performed terribly in both of them compared to his previous performances and capability, and now even after Canelo left 160 to boot, he's still at 160!!!!
I mean we saw from both Canelo vs GGG fights, let alone both their entire careers. GGG's one full power shot, to head or body, hurts Canelo more than five or ten Canelo shots, in combination all at once, to GGG's head or body. So if those were real fights, and if GGG vs Canelo is a real fight, then all GGG has to do is go in like Antonio Margarito (except GGG is way better, on top of it all) and beat him down like Margarito-Cotto 1. That's the perfect comparison because Cotto's style and characteristics are very similar to Canelo. GGG is way better than Margarito, and Canelo is slightly better than Cotto, but otherwise it a perfect comparison, except with GGG vs Canelo it shouldn't even take half as long because of Canelo's stamina and GGG's superior power and skills compared to Margarito.
But instead, for both fights, GGG was arm "punching," pitty pat, no body shots, the head shots were all sort of arm punches. All GGG had to do to KO Canelo, if the fights were real, was go in head first and make it a war. Take one, or even two, to give one, but make sure the "one" that you do give is a full power punch, like GGG supposedly threw in all his fights before, not pitty patter bs. Not only should those hurt Canelo even when he is fresh, considering that Liam Smith hurt Canelo not long before GGG fought him, especially to the body, but Canelo has a stamina problem to boot!
Really, Canelo is made to order for GGG! Shorter reach. Worse footwork. Worse stamina. For a stamina machine like GGG, a swarmer, a pressure-boxer puncher, that should be an easy fight! Maybe not for the first 4 rounds while the guy can counter you, but ultimately, what does it matter if he can't hurt you and the points he scores won't matter anyway when you stop him and the scorecards become irrelevant? It's just a bad style matchup for Canelo. When you have bad stamina, someone who can come at you all night and never stop throwing punches, and who can hurt you and drain your stamina on top of it, but who you can't hurt back, that's almost an impossible fight to win.
And yet, GGG let him have an argument for winning or at least tying the fight not once, but twice!!! It doesn't even make sense, if you understand boxing. And in the second fight, GGG was even backing up from him. Canelo came to him, which should really be irrelevant either way in this case, but if anything it just makes the job even easier, and instead of going to war, GGG backed up!
What happened to GGG supposedly taking punches on purpose? What happened to "big drama show"? If Margarito ran from Cotto instead of pressuring, and only threw pitty pat arm punches instead of going to war, Cotto would have beaten him too!
Even at 40 years old, unless GGG's chin is completely shot, he should be able to KO Canelo within 8 rounds by going at him like Margarito, Salido, etc, from the opening bell. You know, Mexican style. Or was that just one more fraudulent marketing promise to add to the list?
Look, just because Team GGG said he would fight and beat anyone from 154 to 175, and inferred he was clearly superior to Sergey Kovalev the #1 light heavyweight, doesn't mean his fans are entitled to demand that he go knock out Andre Ward, Kovalev, Beterbiev, etc, all in one round at 175, or otherwise abandon support for him. Of course not. But he didn't even deliver at 160 or 154!!! Let alone 168 or 175!!!! So on that basis, I do feel like yeah, GGG's fans are entitled to say, and really just admit to ourselves, yeah, we got taken for a ride. This guy was a talented, charismatic boxer, fun to watch, but at the end of the day, a lot of it was just marketing and hype, and as much as he talked about goals like undisputed, or beating the best guys from 154 to 175, his actions suggest he never cared about any of it, and it was all bs, and he was just waiting to fight Canelo for money.
Even before the first Canelo fight, GGG's trainer, Abel Sanchez, was talking about a trilogy. To me, that's very suspect when you have a fighter who is a KO machine and has never needed a rematch before. Why would that even be on your mind that you would have to fight this guy three times when you are so used to dominating opponents and only needing to fight them once? Very, very suspect, IMO. I think GGG will get his fans back only if he gets the third Canelo fight and goes in and does it like everyone was expecting him to the first fight, and then moves up in weight and a big legacy win at least at 168, maybe 175. If he can pull Ward out of retirement and beat him at either 168 or 175 or somewhere in between, after KOing Canelo, GGG might become the most popular boxer in the world. If not, I think his "boxing" career will go down as "could have, should have, but time to move on."
GGG has never been willing to step outside of his comfort zone while preferring running with media hype. Even when people were trying to hype him as avoided, his team straight up refused fights with Lara who would have been his most proven opponent at that point: "When Tom came to me and offered Lara and Sergio Mora, I'm the one who said 'I don't want those fights.' I'm the one who said that before there was a chance to have it discussed with Gennady. I told that to Tom, because first of all Lara has not earned the right to fight Golovkin. And the reason I say that is because he takes fights like Delvin, and Delvin is not a bad fighter but he doesn't belong at that level. He struggled with Delvin. Yes he won every round but he didn't do what he needed to do in order to be in the mix,"
I'd like to see it, but I don't see how it happens. He should probably test out 168 first before taking on someone like AB anyway. Remember how much issue Ward had with Kov's power in their first fight early, you have to ease into match ups like that if you're coming up in weight.
GGG centered his career around waiting for/forcing the Canelo fight(s). Financially it turned out perfect for him. Legacy wise, well some people like me think he had a great career, others disagree. But there is hardly ever any consensus on legacy anyway.
I don't remember Ward having any problem with Kovalev's power. It looked like Kovalev was pulling his punches, including on that knockdown that should have been a KO except he inexplicably slapped it instead of punching with his fist. And in case I had any doubts that those fights were bs, Kovalev pulled out the same sh1t against Canelo in an even more blatant and obvious way. Just my opinion, but my guess is they scripted that ridiculous finish in the second fight, with the low blows, as a way to distract from the fact the whole fights were fake. It also would explain why Kovalev put up so little resistance to the unfair tactics, and then fell on the ropes in just the perfect way that the ref could call it a TKO rather than just a knockdown.
Really, the whole "saga" looks suspect in hindsight. Kovalev just so happened to develop a bad drinking problem right at the time he was training to fight the P4P #2 fighter in the world? And also right around when he had a young child. At the very least Kovalev would have cut it down just to prove Team Ward wrong for calling him out about his drinking problem, because he supposedly disliked them so much. Or was that just an act too? Wouldn't surprise me. Just my opinion guys.
I'd like to see it, but I don't see how it happens. He should probably test out 168 first before taking on someone like AB anyway. Remember how much issue Ward had with Kov's power in their first fight early, you have to ease into match ups like that if you're coming up in weight.
GGG centered his career around waiting for/forcing the Canelo fight(s). Financially it turned out perfect for him. Legacy wise, well some people like me think he had a great career, others disagree. But there is hardly ever any consensus on legacy anyway.