I think Abel Sanchez ruined GGG. Look how much speed he's lost!

[TonyGe]

I've heard that theory before concerning other athletes in other sports. Whether its true or not I have no idea. He is getting older so that's a big factor.

[Boxing Logic]

Yes, he's definitely aged, so his muscles have matured...of course he's going slow down some, just as everyone does. I think you're blowing this out of proportion though. He was on his toes in this first workout video for the Geale fight, something he doesn't do all that much in fights anymore. He's much more measured, even a head hunter at times which is the part I don't like...especially when in the ring against an actual opponent! But to say he's not explosive? Go watch that Vanes fight again! How hard he's working the mitts vs high level competition makes all the difference in how he's going to look.

Those hooks in the Vanes fight look slower to me than they used to. Vanes hadnt fought in 2 years, never fought at 160, and for some reason decided to trade with GGG. GGG hit him in an exchange and even with his slower, less powerful punches, it was enough to hurt a 154 pounder, and a clean fighter (many of GGG's rivals now will be on PEDs with much better punch resistance than that, so it's irrelevant), but the point is that in GGG's prime, he was better than everyone else, on PEDs or not. Now it's like, yeah he can knock out a clean 154 pounder with a normal neck, but that doesn't mean he can do it to 160 pounders with huge PED necks.

It's not supposed to be obvious. Boxing is a game of inches. How many times did GGG miss by just inches vs Canelo, as well as Jacobs and Brook for that matter? Just like after Kovalev's decline he started missing by just inches vs Ward (otherwise the KD would have been a KO), Alvarez, etc, just like Pacquiao started missing by inches when in his prime he didn't.

But GGG's punches are slower now. They don't snap to the target like in his prime. I think that's the key thing to look for, because the actual speed is very hard for the eye to perceive. But in GGG's prime, his punches had this visual effect where they would seem to get faster the closer to the target they got, almost like a heat sinking missile heading for its target. He would hit guys clean and they wouldn't be able to dodge his punches because as his punches neared their heads or bodies, his punches were moving so much faster than their heads or bodies or reflexes in general that the punches would connect flush, there was no dodging them. Now when he fights, it's like his opponents reflexes dodging his punches are faster than his punches. Even if they don't see the punch until 12 inches from their face, there is no acceleration at the end of the punch so they are still able to roll with it. As a result his punches now look weaker and constantly have this effect of bouncing or skidding off the target instead of exploding through the target. Now I dont know if part of that is a result of Canelo and Jacobs heads and necks being so strong that they are stronger than GGG's punch and it makes the punch bounce off their heads instead of their heads get moved by the punch, but even if that's the case, the point is prime GGG had so much explosion and power in his punches that his punches would have rocked back even a big PED head like Canelo's. But now they don't.

For example, check out this video from 5 years ago. https://youtu.be/kRsxQ5uSP0Y?t=92

I don't know if it's because GGG is using extra big gloves with more mass, but the punches have such snap and acceleration at the end right into the target. It's like a rifle, or a *******. Now, GGG's punches look more like wet noodles. Relatively speaking. It's like he's punching uphill now whereas before, it was like he was punching downhill with a huge gust of wind behind him. Now it's like he punches into the wind. See what I mean? The punches in this video from 5 years ago, he actually looks fast. Not Mayweather fast, but he looks like he has handspeed comparable with Jermall Charlo, Canelo, guys like that. I mean if anything, those bigger gloves should make you slower, and yet even with heavier gloves, he was significantly faster back then. It's just crazy to think about. And yet now, he looks legitimately slow. He looks like he'd be at a huge speed disadvantage vs Charlo or Canelo.

So, it's night and day. GGG in his prime was not just strong, he was an "explosive" puncher. Now, he's just strong. The explosiveness, the "snap," is gone. There is a certain velocity your punches have to reach in the pros to be able to land clean, and not have your punches easily dodged, by top level boxers. It probably has something to do with how fast the human eye can notice movement, how fast the mind can react, that type of thing. Past a certain velocity, your punches are too fast for the opponent to consistently dodge, and you land clean, unexpected punches regularly. But below a certain velocity, suddenly they can see everything coming and doge or slip it. Canelo even said that, that he saw every GGG punch coming a mile away.

In GGG's prime, his punches were above that threshold, clearly, making him an incredible boxer. But now, they are clearly below it. It makes all the difference in the world. In GGG's prime, he was an A-level fighter, an All Time Great middleweight. This GGG? Kelly Pavlik would stop him. Not just stop him, but dominate him, then stop him, in my opinion. And prime Pavlik was good and all, Im just saying, GGG has declined an extreme amount. Prime GGG outboxed Andre Dirrell in the amateurs even though the amateurs fit Dirrell's style, not GGG's, and Dirrell is a natural 168, GGG 160. But prime Dirrell vs this GGG, GGG would barely land a punch all night. I could go on and on. I just don't think this GGG is even an elite boxer anymore. I think he's more B-level now than anything, and Canelo just lacked the stamina and natural dimensions of a middleweight to take advantage of GGG. But this version of GGG, you put him in with a true elite middleweight boxer that is also a big middleweight with a reach advantage on him, and he might get shutout completely at this point. You can't be an elite boxer without reflexes. You can't be punching in slow motion, punching under water, pushing your punches as Bernard Hopkins put it, I believe, commentating the Brook fight two years ago.

It's almost like GGG has declined even more than people think in most ways, but his jab is still better than most and he's used that to cover up how badly everything else is declining. But I started seeing major decline even in the jab in the Canelo fight, so once he fights someone with a prime top jab who can match his jab, I think we will see that GGG has declined even more than people think.

I hope I'm wrong though. More than that, I hope Conte is correct that this is the cause more than age, and I hope GGG's team gets word of it and fixes it, and maybe somehow we see an improved GGG at 37 years of old next year, despite the age, due to him fixing his training location and repairing the damage it did to his muscles if that is in fact the case. But I have no way of getting this info to GGG, and Victor Conte made no indication he would contact Team GGG about this. I don't think he and Abel are on great terms, and I fear Abel is too stubborn to change camp locations. He owns that whole training complex in Big Bear, and lives there, and I fear he would put that ahead of his fighters well being, or simply live in denial subconsciously about this being a real issue as a way to not have to face that choice at all consciously, if it is the real issue at play here. But, I hope I'm wrong.

[McNulty]

yeah, totally Abel's fault that his hand speed slowed down between age 32 and 36

Haha, no shít right. To top it off this guy thinks Kovalev won 8-4 vs Ward. You figured with the internet people would get smarter as time wore on --- nope.

[_Maxi]

I HAVE A DIFFERENT THEORY.

GGG was taking roids between 2010-2015.

Then VADA testing came, and he stopped taking them. Lost speed, lost power, lost muscle definition. BJS mentioned this as well.

It could be age though. Or high altitude training as well.

My opinion is that GGG is a clean fighter since 2016. Thus why he doesn't look immortal as in 2010-2015.

Everyone has their opinions on the matter. I'm a BIG GGG fan. I think he's still the best at 160. If everyone is clean, he's the best fighter at 160. I think he has good defense that some people can't recognize. He has great ring IQ and is a great fighter overall.

But I'm neutral and intelligent. I'm not a nuthugger as some ****** claim. So I keep it 100% real and my theory is that he took roids from 2010-2015.

And I made THREE threads about it in the past. One of them: https://www.boxingscene.com/forums/s...d.php?t=772773

I'm only 30. Maybe when I'm 36 and I see my body change then I'll understand it was age. I'm not sure.

[Boxing Logic]

I've heard that theory before concerning other athletes in other sports. Whether its true or not I have no idea. He is getting older so that's a big factor.

Haven't you heard? Mid-thirties isn't old for an elite boxer anymore. "It's changed in the last decade" - Max Kellerman. Lol. Who claims to be against PEDs but then pushes this bull**** about how human biology magically changed drastically in just the last decade.

But he has a point. Floyd, BHop, Rigo, Stevenson, and many others did not decline this drastically. GGG started losing snap on his punches at I believe 33 years old I first started noticing it. Now according to athletic studies, that is absolutely normal, but you see many other boxers who dont decline as quickly as GGG has. Rigo is way smaller than GGG so he should have declined much earlier than GGG, and yet his reflexes lasted much longer close to their peak level than GGG's.

Then again, most of those names were either never drug tested year round, or only more recently. But then again AGAIN, GGG apparently withdraw from VADA's 365 program between the last Canelo fight and the Vanes fight, before re-entering VADA testing leading up to the originally schedule Canelo rematch which turned into the Vanes fight, and then continuing right after the Vanes fight.

Let's see who else. I mean, I never saw Nietes fight in his prime, but he is 36 and his last fight on HBO, he stopped his opponent with very snappy, accurate shots.

In contrast, GGG, Kovalev, Chocolatito, and Cuadras are all major names who have either trained most their careers at Big Bear, or started training at Big Bear around the age of 30, and all four of them have seen either their reflexes, or their performances in general, fall off cliffs very early in their thirties. It just makes you wonder. I mean, Victor Conte is one of the foremost experts on sports biology or sports science or however you want to put it. He has exposed hyperbaric chambers, exposed the inadequacy of many drug tests, all sorts of things. I don't know anything about the hyperbaric chambers, but he was definitely proven right about what he said years ago about drug testing science. So if he knows the latest science about altitude training, and he says this is what it says, shouldn't we, and more importantly GGG's team, trust him and react accordingly? It seems like Conte would know much better about this than Abel Sanchez who seems to be a disciplinarian and motivator first and foremost, a boxing trainer second, a tactician third, and a sports scientist and nutrionist last. He even has GGG eating carne asada and other Mexican food from the local restaurant in Big Bear during camp, instead of strict dieting to maximize speed. But that's another topic.

As a GGG fan, it would just be nice to know that his team is actually aware of Conte's claims, and the science he is referring to, and that they are adjusting accordingly. Either to hear that they are aware of the claims, and have them say "we looked into it and they're not true, here is why," or to hear that they are aware and have them say, "yes it's true, so we will no longer be training in Big Bear, or, we have moved oxygen tanks into GGG's room in Big Bear where he sleeps and adjusted them scientifically in order to disperse the exact amount of oxygen into the air needed to simulate the oxygen levels of normal elevation that the high twitch muscles need to rebuild and build themselves back up." One or the other. Because it's not high altitude training that is the problem, in fact Conte's fighters like Jacobs and fighters who use his system like Ward both train in simulated high elevation, it's the high altitude RECOVERY that is the problem. GGG could simply use a high altitude room for training, but then sleep at normal elevation, or, the idea I just came up with, train in natural high elevation, but then create a normal elevation room to sleep in.

It's just crazy that Jacobs' guy, Conte, or GGG fans like me, seem to be putting more thought into what's causing GGG's rapid decline than Abel is. Every time someone asks him if GGG is declining, he gives the same ****** answer that he can't say GGG is declining because GGG has still never been dominant. Funny because in GGG's prime, we judged him based on his dominance, and that was the norm. Now suddenly if he can simply stave off being dominated himself, that's supposed to be cause for celebration, or at least that's the spin from Abel. It's such a dumb answer, it makes you think no one can really be that dumb so the only real explanation for such a dumb answer must be that Abel is using it to try to cover up the fact that, actually, he can very well see that GGG is declining.

But, we don't really know. The fact we're only hearing silence on the altitude issue makes me think GGG's team is not aware of it, and that if Abel specifically has heard what Conte is saying, which my guess is he has, that Abel has sort of swept it under the rug and not brought it up to GGG or his team because Abel wants to protect the value of his expensive facility that he owns in Big Bear. Right now many fighters flock there, but if it gets out that the altitude there could be harming fighters, it would be bad for business unless Abel was willing to relocate, which would obviously be the right, and only, thing to do if Abel wanted to keep training fighters in the future, but which I'm sure he would prefer not to do. And that is very disappointing for GGG and his fans because it sounds like his career has been, and will continue to be, ruined in a sense by something that, according to Victor Conte, was totally preventable, and even to this day is still preventable, or reversible, to a degree, but somehow the people who could do something about this, GGG and his team, aren't aware of it, and it was actually a member of one of GGG's rivals teams, Victor Conte who had worked with Danny Jacobs, who was nice enough to bring this knowledge to light after GGG-Jacobs took place.

Meaning, Jacobs was the one paying Conte, not GGG, and yet Conte was still nice enough to bring this info to light that could save GGG's career. And yet somehow it seems like it still hasn't gotten to GGG's ears or his team's, or if it has, they have turned a blind eye to it, or like I said maybe Abel tried to sweep it away. Whichever is the case, it's just so disappointing, and frustrating, as a fan of GGG, and not fair to him or his brother at all.

[boliodogs]

Today's GGG looks pretty damn good to me right now. He is hardly the plodding slow bum you are trying so hard to make him out to be.Ring rates him as the best PFP boxer in the world and all known PFP lists have him top 5 or higher. Most viewers thought he beat the excellent Canelo and he is the betting favorite to win the rematch. The rematch with Canelo should show if he is in need of a new team or not.

[Boxing Logic]

Today's GGG looks pretty damn good to me right now. He is hardly the plodding slow bum you are trying so hard to make him out to be.Ring rates him as the best PFP boxer in the world and all known PFP lists have him top 5 or higher. Most viewers thought he beat the excellent Canelo and he is the betting favorite to win the rematch. The rematch with Canelo should show if he is in need of a new team or not.

Yeah but who is Canelo? Elite handspeed for 160 and good power, but not the stamina to use either consistently for 12 rounds. 5'8 middleweight. Below average reach just like GGG. He beat Canelo with volume and jabs more than anything. Underrated skill and fundamentals, too, yes, but it wasn't an impressive performance. It looked like one prime guy with major stamina issues facing an old fighter who had no business beating him except for the fact his stamina issues were that awful. GGG-Canelo was never supposed to be a big legacy fight for GGG, it was just supposed to be the stepping stone vs the very good, not elite, but very good, and extremely POPULAR, Canelo, in order to make GGG a big enough star that he could actually get top opponents in the ring with him immediately afterwards. GGG was supposed to knock out Canelo or another big star by 2014 at the latest, then fight Saunders immediately afterwards to unify all 4 belts, then move up to 168 to do the same there and really solidify an ATG legacy for himself. But GGG-Canelo took so long to materialize that it's basically become GGG's one and only legacy fight, a huge disappointment, and in that time Canelo has seemed to develop into more of a quality opponent worthy of being a legacy fight, perhaps with the help of PEDs.

Well, top opponent, that is, except for the lack of stamina.

I've written so much on this topic already, let me just say it like this. Yes, GGG beat Jacobs and Canelo, barely, but in GGG's last 29 rounds not counting Vanes, he has 1 knockdown, 1, in 29 rounds, and that was a flash knockdown. He's basically gone 30 rounds now, 5 of them vs a welterweight, without scoring a real knockdown. And why not? Because he's actually gone 30 straight rounds vs those guys barely landing a clean power shot. A few here and there, but very few. Also, very few clean body shots vs those guys either. He used to be as good at these things as anyone in the game, whereas now it's a complete struggle for him. If that's not major decline, what is?

And it's not even like it's Floyd Mayweather he fought. He fought three guys actually more known for offense than defense in Brook, Jacobs, and Canelo. Yes all three are skillful particularly Brook and Canelo, but none of them are known as truly elite defensive boxers like a Lomachenko or Lara. But you never would have known that the way they were constantly making GGG miss. GGG made them all look like Pernell Whitaker the way they were dodging and rolling his punches and making it look like he was punching in slow motion. Wait, no, he essentially was! They didn't make him look anything. If you go look at the hooks GGG was throwing in just the 5th round of the Canelo, Jacobs, OR Brook fights, and you compare them to the hooks GGG was throwing in the LATTER rounds vs Murray or Ouma (his only other fights to go deep), you will see that GGG had way more snap and explosiveness on his punches LATE in fights earlier in his career than he does now EARLY in fights.

And if you watch Artorius boxing video of GGG in the amateurs, before he was even fully developed, the top comment says "wow GGG used to be fast, what did Abel do to him?" or something like that. And GGG should have gotten FASTER going to the pros in smaller gloves, not slower, so that really says something.

Or if you watch GGG-Brook, Bernard Hopkins, Canelo's own promoter, is commentating and he says, "it looks like GGG has no snap on his punches," like he's pushing his punches. GGG looked so old even by then that everyone speculated he had the flu. Then everyone said he took it easy on Jacobs in order to lure Canelo. There is always an excuse now every time he looks subpar because people can't admit he's declined. It's the same as when Pacquiao got into his thirties, there was always an excuse about why his performances weren't as good, with Roach saying he didn't want to hurt his opponent because of religion and stuff like that.

In reality, he was just declining. People are saying GGG took it easy on Canelo too in order to lure the rematch. Always some sort of excuse now when in reality, GGG had no flu vs Brook. He wasn't taking it easy vs Jacobs. That's my whole point, GGG has declined so much now that healthy GGG now looks like prime GGG with the flu. In fact, we saw prime GGG vs the flu against Gabe Rosado, and prime GGG with the flu was better than current GGG healthy. That's how much he has declined. And BHop mentioned that again after the Canelo fight, saying GGG has slowed down and he can't beat my guy now, there's nothing he can do new because he is slowing down. Team Canelo waited him out to full effect, it's Mayweather-Pacquiao all over again, boxing screws it up yet again, this time with the fight that was supposed to be the apology, the make up to the fans, for Mayweather-Pacquiao, but has somehow turned into a carbon copy of Mayweather-Pacquiao all over again in the most important ways (the age of the fighters). In fact GGG right now is the exact same age that Pacquiao was when Floyd fought him, and you can argue that Pacquiao was actually closer to his prime at that point than GGG is now. At least 36 year old Pacquiao still showed the ability to dominate fast boxers like Bradley and Algieri and land clean, explosive power punches. GGG has gone 30 straight rounds now, other than 2 years out the ring Vanes, without being able to do that with any consistency against three separate opponents, none of whom are even defensive specialists (although Canelo is getting there).

[boliodogs]

Wow. You seem to think Conte is this genius and everything he says is the gospel. Now training at high altitude ruins fighters even though champion boxers have been training in the mountains and coming into the ring in great shape for the last hundred years or so. Tell Marquez what a fool he was to train in the Mexican mountains at 12000 ft. and how it ruined and cut short his career. How many champions has Conte trained compared to Sanchez? Why do good boxers come from all over the world to be trained by Sanchez? By the way boxers age at exactly the same rate today that they always have. Most boxers start to go down hill after age 30 the same as ever. There was always the occasional ageless boxer like Archie Moore. Any slow down you see in GGG is due to him being 36 which on average is about 6 years past his prime. Why do you think Ward and Bradley retired at 33?

[Boxing Logic]

(Edited)

by the way, you can see in that GGG-Canelo gif, GGG is pushing some of those punches. That jab to the stomach has no snap on it for one. Neither does the straight right. Some of the hooks have some snap but they don't have come out as fluid or with as much velocity, explosiveness, and snap as they used to. A pitcher who throws 93 miles per hour still throws a decent pitch but that's nowhere near elite like when he used to throw 99 miles per hour, see what I mean? At the top level it's a game of inches. If you lose a few dozen milliseconds off your punches, you've lost a mile. That's why top boxers take every precaution especially as they age not to lose even a whisker of their speed. So if your argument is, "GGG still looks 95% as fast, and in many clips it looks virtually identical," well yeah, our eyes are not necessarily trained to be able to pinpoint that 5% decline in every clip, but that 5% is still going to be the difference between an elite boxer, and a B-level one, in the ring, whether you can notice it in an online youtube video or not. That's why I talk about things like "snap" because while the velocity itself may be hard to judge, our eyes can pick up better on things like snap which is ultimately an indicator that the velocity has declined if there is less snap. It's just easier to notice the decline in snap rather than the decline in velocity.

[Boxing Goat]

GGG has lost speed with age. No mystery here. But he still a boxing predator and elite talent. Nobody fights forever and age is the reason.