Is it true some Cuban amateurs defected Cuba rather than face GGG?

[Citizen Koba]

Aight I think this is the one. https://youtu.be/TIiZkOAqlFk?t=38

"Even the Cubans, when we were in Venezuela, when was that, '07? Every day we get in the breakfast line, there'd be ten Cubans in the breakfast line, ten Americans, and ten guys from England, ten guys from (inaudible), and then one day we got in the line and was only 3 cubans but there was 5 coaches surrounding them, because they had defected. I wish I had known what I know now when I been talking to guys like GGG. So yeah, he was great, and he caused a lot of havoc with his pinpoint punching and the power that he had, so we were never successful against him, yeah, he was very good." --- Kenny Porter

OK everyone? So you can stop hating on me, and GGG for that matter. You guys think we overrate him, but maybe we have just done more research and found out just how good and feared he really was in his prime? He never got the opportunities in his prime in the pros to show it, so all we have to go off of are interviews like this, and GGG's dominant performances vs the guys who were willing to get in the ring with him during his prime. Our "biased GGG fan" opinions are just as valid as your opinions are about him, probably a lot more because clearly we have spent more time learning about his career than his non-fans or haters have.

I'm pretty sure he's not trying to say there's a causal relationship between Golovkin being a damn beast and the Cubans defecting in 2007 / 8, just reminiscing over two separate issues. Hell, GGG turned pro in 2006 so he'd be casting a long shadow indeed if he had Cubans fleeing their homes a year later. In fact they're almost certainly unrelated events but if they were related you'd assume it was the other way round.. some of the Cuban team saw a top Am go pro and thought it might be a good idea to follow suite.

[Bjl12]

Dude was probably joking, man. Kenny Porter's a good dude, but guys don't defect for reasons like that... umm. Actually. Did he mean default?

That seems much more probable.

Do you have the interview?

Nobody defects from an amateur match unless their life is in danger...no amateur was ever in danger against any other amateur.

Unless we're talking about a professional taxi cab driver and part-time fighter. Then, yes, Gennady spent an entire career showing he could exterminate all cab drivers

[Curtis Harper]

I think you mean age, not Canelo.

Strange how some people age when they up their comp.

If GGG found another Vanes, he'd be 25 again.

[Citizen Koba]

Nobody defects from an amateur match unless their life is in danger...no amateur was ever in danger against any other amateur.

Unless we're talking about a professional taxi cab driver and part-time fighter. Then, yes, Gennady spent an entire career showing he could exterminate all cab drivers

Huh?

Do you mean no-one defaults from an amateur match? Not usually, though there might be instances where they might in order to avoid the risk of injury for a more important tourney like the Olympics or the Worlds if they were in a minor tourney ... the point is that without having heard the interview it seemed exponentially more likely that Kenny meant defaulting rather than defecting. I could see a fighter might just possibly default, but suggesting a man would uproot his life to avoid a boxing match is beyond ridiculous.

Having read the transcript though I'm not getting the sense that Kenny is particularly linking the events (Golovkin and the Cuban defections) even though he talks about them in almost the same breath.

And yeah. All I was trying to do is make sense of the information provided, man. If you want to use this as a platform to disrespect boxers by calling them cab drivers and stuff then you might want to find someone else's posts to do it on, cos I'll just stick you on ignore you keep it up.

[Curt Henning]

why did lil g duck lara for years when lara would have been the best name on his resume? when lara was #1 at 154 and had headlined many shows on premium and regular cable?

[Citizen Koba]

why did lil g duck lara for years when lara would have been the best name on his resume? when lara was #1 at 154 and had headlined many shows on premium and regular cable?

Fights don't happen for lots of reasons, man. And far, far more fights don't happen than do happen. You gonna say fighters are ducking every time a somebody calls for a fight and it doesn't get made? That'd be just about every top fighter in history at one time or another, man. Or you gonna find some reason why this logic doesn't apply to fighters you like?

Could be the HBO budget wouldn't stretch to it, could be HBO didn't want a Haymon fighter on their show at that time, or they blieved negotiations would be too time consuming, or could be they didn't think a Lara fight would sell, could even be - and I suspect this is what you're implying - that they thought he'd make Golovkin look bad. Point is that is just one of a wide range of possibilities and not really the most likely for my money. If it's me first and foremost I'll look for a financial reason why fights don't happen, cos that's usually how grown ups make decisions.

How do you define a 'duck' anyway? No fighter is ever under any obligations to fight another unless they are defending a belt (and even then they can always bin it). What criteria do you specifically use to decide, and do you apply those criteria equally to all fighters? Myself, I don't really use the term, but in any case the only time I find it remotely acceptable is in the event of a fighter refusing to fight a mandatory - and hell, not even then if there's a good (usually financial) reason why they've made that choice.

Only time there was much call for a Lara fight (even from the guys on this forum) was the period in mid 2015 when he fought Monroe and mid - late 2016 when he fought Wade and Brook but before the Jacobs negotiations had kicked off. Before and after (and even in the middle when he fought Lemieux) the dudes he was fighting were in line with what would be expected of any championship level MW. Hell, no-one complained when Maravilla was fighting the same guys whilst he was regarded as a top 5 P4Per. So basically the 'years' of 'ducking' were actually two spells of between 6 and 9 months... ain't really that long, now, is it? Specially given that some of the top guys go literally years between decent fights, even when they got the most powerful promoters in the business.

[Jax teller]

why did lil g duck lara for years when lara would have been the best name on his resume? when lara was #1 at 154 and had headlined many shows on premium and regular cable?

Shouldn't he have moved to 160 to challenge the guy he is calling out?

[Boxing Logic]

I'm pretty sure he's not trying to say there's a causal relationship between Golovkin being a damn beast and the Cubans defecting in 2007 / 8, just reminiscing over two separate issues. Hell, GGG turned pro in 2006 so he'd be casting a long shadow indeed if he had Cubans fleeing their homes a year later. In fact they're almost certainly unrelated events but if they were related you'd assume it was the other way round.. some of the Cuban team saw a top Am go pro and thought it might be a good idea to follow suite.

No no no, I, ME, I am not saying there is a casual relationship. Kenny Porter absolutely was. I only quoted from halfway through his quote or his Q&A. Watch from the beginning he is asked how good was GGG, he talks about how good he was in the amateurs, then he said even the Cubans, one time in '07, they defected, so yeah, GGG was really good. The whole thing was about GGG, and how good GGG was, and he brought up Cubans defecting as an example of how good GGG was. So he was definitely saying that. He probably just had bad info but he definitely said it. Im trying to get to the bottom of it but people are hating on me just for bringing it up.

[Boxing Logic]

Could be the HBO budget wouldn't stretch to it, could be

Lara's manager Decubas said at the time Lara is loyal to Showtime, he would fight GGG on Showtime. I mean come on. These guys will believe anything. Lara vs prime GGG? You serious? Didnt he go life and death with Carlos Molina (pts wise) and Angulo? At 154? I was begging for the Lara fight as a GGG fan but Lara was all talk. That would have been easy work for prime GGG. Probably would have ended the fight with a cut on his face but Lara would have ended the fight on the canvas.

[Citizen Koba]

Lara's manager Decubas said at the time Lara is loyal to Showtime, he would fight GGG on Showtime. I mean come on. These guys will believe anything. Lara vs prime GGG? You serious? Didnt he go life and death with Carlos Molina (pts wise) and Angulo? At 154? I was begging for the Lara fight as a GGG fan but Lara was all talk. That would have been easy work for prime GGG. Probably would have ended the fight with a cut on his face but Lara would have ended the fight on the canvas.

I would have liked that fight too, but there's a whole list of legitimate reasons why it was unlikely... some of these dudes will be calling them 'excuses' of course. As to how it would have gone.. well we'll never know, but if asked at the time I would have pointed to all the fights you just did. Now?.. Ha. Course, some folk will say that he gave Canelo hell so he would do the same to Golovkin.

Always was a fight that I thought was made too much of, but I still would have liked to have seen it.