Comments Thread For: Hopkins: Golovkin on The Decline, He Didn't Get Better!

[HarvardBlue]

Who has had a longer career, Malignaggi or Margarito?

Well Margarito is still fighting. They're both waaaaay past their prime and Malignaggi has options other than boxing. What's your point?

[Boxing Logic]

Round 1 GGG landed one or two decent jab

The rest were pitter patter jabs that either didn't connect of were blocked

But the bias commentators were going nuts for GGG

While Canelo was landing body shots, a jab or two of his own

Yeah and unless I'm confusing the rounds, the left hook to the body Canelo landed that looked so sweet in real time, right on the button, was actually shown to have landed on GGG's back upon replay between the rounds.

Anyway, if you want to look at the fight overall, this is how I would award it:

GGG had:

- Effective aggression at times
- Heavier punches
- More punches

Canelo had:

- Better defense at times
- Cleaner punches

So in total, that's 3 categories to 2. The defense and effective aggression kind of cancel each other out. Canelo was retreating the whole night, so for the portions of rounds where he was making GGG miss all the time, you give him credit for the defense scoring criteria, but then because GGG is still stalking him all night, the moment GGG starts landing punches, Canelo stops getting credit for the defense criteria, and you have to give GGG credit both for the punches landed, and the effective aggression criteria, because he is being the aggressor and it is now having effect in landed punches, while Canelo's defense is failing.

So those two, cancel them out.

GGG landed more punches, Canelo landed cleaner punches... it depends how much more, vs how much cleaner, but for the sake of argument, those two cancel out.

So then what is left? GGG punches were heavier. They seemed to tire Canelo more than vice versa. Canelo's clean punches were effecting GGG less than GGG's punches even if they weren't clean. One nice Canelo right hand certainly looks nicer on TV than two GGG jabs, but if you judge the effect, it seems like GGG's jabs, due to their weight, were affecting Canelo more.

GGG also won larger portions of the rounds. Canelo's 1st minute might have been the best minute of the round, but then Canelo would do nothing for the last 2 minutes while GGG piled up points. So in some way GGG's aggression was effective enough to keep Canelo tired 2 minutes out of every round. And whose punches are more effective if one guy is constantly backpedaling away from his opponent's punches, while the other guy is walking into his opponent's? If you don't reward power in the scoring criteria in some sense then barring a knockdown you're basically making it a pure speed sport, where the faster guy will always have an advantage over the powerful guy, all else being equal.

It was also interesting to me how even when it didn't look like GGG was landing his sunday punches, Canelo looked so uncomfortable in his corner, wincing sometimes, and was also retreating so much. It reminds me when Virgil Hunter was analyzing Provodnikov vs Algieri, and talking about how even though Algieri isn't a power puncher, his jabs were snapping Provodnikov's head back, and he said that actually creates a feeling of nausea and disorientation. So if Algieri's jabs can do that, how do you think it feels getting hit by 12 GGG jabs in a round? Maybe 4 are super clean, maybe 4 are more on the forehead, and maybe 4 somewhat graze, but does it matter? This is a man who broke Kell Brook's orbital bone with a jab. Brook was obviously not as strong as Canelo, but he was just as heavy as GGG in that ring, so you tell me. I remember Sergey Kovalev hit Cedric Agnew with a body shot that looked like literally nothing, and it broke Agnew's ribs. These guys hit hard. Paulie Malignaggi probably lands much more impressive punches, to this day, than GGG does, visually speaking, because of the speed of impact, but you can bet that GGG's jab is a harder punch than Malignaggi's right hand, so looks can deceiving, to some extent.

In other words, speed tends to look more impressive, but it doesn't equate to more powerful punches. Canelo hit Cotto with so many amazing looking punches that if GGG had that same speed and had been able to land those same punches on Cotto, Cotto would have been knocked out 5 different times in one fight. So, I'm just saying.

That's just my impression of it. I wanted GGG to win, I was disappointed in his performance overall, but I did think he won. What do you think?

[thack]

If that's the case there's no need for a rematch as Canelo should retire immediately as G. clearly won that fight!

[Boxopera]

Basically, In order to beat a top promoted guy. You have to knock him out or make it nearly impossible to defend a poor decision. The winner is chosen not based on merit but by promoter and money making ability.
Boxing is not a sport. It is a popularity contest based on money production.


The idea that boxing is rigged or fixed is obvious. All these fights we watch we know who the winner is and all of sudden it's tie or a win for the loser is sickening. If I spend money and time on a sport only to get kicked in the balls after betting on Golovkin, then these mf's on the take try to tell me they saw it 7-5 Canelo...It's too much after a while. It's a rigged sport. The promotion company attempt to make national heroes out of ordinary fighters by giving close fights to their chosen one so they can continually sell out Las Vegas. It's artificial.

The judges are not stupid or bad at their job. They are doing exactly what they are paid to do. Mislead the public. Make sure "their guy" doesn't lose.

What is the point of watching boxing if the loser gets the decision based on financial consideration?

[LetOutTheCage]

On the decline? Yes but was still good enough to comfortably beat Canelo.

[jjsmyth87]

I had GGG by a point, but your analysis is way off. Canelo did well with offense and defense the first few rounds and the last few rounds... definitely fought well, accurate punches, had an excellent defense. The mid rounds he concentrated too much on defense and not enough on offense, but still landed very accurately when he did throw. GGG missed a shiii-load of punches throughout, and even with his connects he rarely landed solid shots. And he did not cut off the ring effectively very well. And even the few of those punches he landed right on the button, Canelo took them well. I mean, I agree GGG won the fight, but don't go all spazzo on your description of the fight.

Canelo fans are making it seem like rounds 1-3 and 10-12 were one sided rounds in favor of canelo, I thought rounds 1 and 3 and 10-12 were close and could have gone either way, remember ggg outlanded him in 10 out of 12. I have to give Canelo credit though, he hit Ggg with a few vicious shots that would have knocked almost anyone else out, especially that uppercut to ggg's neck they showed on replay but ggg just looked pissed instead of hurt lol

[WesternChamp]

so the rematch wont happen until early 2019 then?

[jjsmyth87]

Yeah and unless I'm confusing the rounds, the left hook to the body Canelo landed that looked so sweet in real time, right on the button, was actually shown to have landed on GGG's back upon replay between the rounds.

Anyway, if you want to look at the fight overall, this is how I would award it:

GGG had:

- Effective aggression at times
- Heavier punches
- More punches

Canelo had:

- Better defense at times
- Cleaner punches

So in total, that's 3 categories to 2. The defense and effective aggression kind of cancel each other out. Canelo was retreating the whole night, so for the portions of rounds where he was making GGG miss all the time, you give him credit for the defense scoring criteria, but then because GGG is still stalking him all night, the moment GGG starts landing punches, Canelo stops getting credit for the defense criteria, and you have to give GGG credit both for the punches landed, and the effective aggression criteria, because he is being the aggressor and it is now having effect in landed punches, while Canelo's defense is failing.

So those two, cancel them out.

GGG landed more punches, Canelo landed cleaner punches... it depends how much more, vs how much cleaner, but for the sake of argument, those two cancel out.

So then what is left? GGG punches were heavier. They seemed to tire Canelo more than vice versa. Canelo's clean punches were effecting GGG less than GGG's punches even if they weren't clean. One nice Canelo right hand certainly looks nicer on TV than two GGG jabs, but if you judge the effect, it seems like GGG's jabs, due to their weight, were affecting Canelo more.

GGG also won larger portions of the rounds. Canelo's 1st minute might have been the best minute of the round, but then Canelo would do nothing for the last 2 minutes while GGG piled up points. So in some way GGG's aggression was effective enough to keep Canelo tired 2 minutes out of every round. And whose punches are more effective if one guy is constantly backpedaling away from his opponent's punches, while the other guy is walking into his opponent's? If you don't reward power in the scoring criteria in some sense then barring a knockdown you're basically making it a pure speed sport, where the faster guy will always have an advantage over the powerful guy, all else being equal.

It was also interesting to me how even when it didn't look like GGG was landing his sunday punches, Canelo looked so uncomfortable in his corner, wincing sometimes, and was also retreating so much. It reminds me when Virgil Hunter was analyzing Provodnikov vs Algieri, and talking about how even though Algieri isn't a power puncher, his jabs were snapping Provodnikov's head back, and he said that actually creates a feeling of nausea and disorientation. So if Algieri's jabs can do that, how do you think it feels getting hit by 12 GGG jabs in a round? Maybe 4 are super clean, maybe 4 are more on the forehead, and maybe 4 somewhat graze, but does it matter? This is a man who broke Kell Brook's orbital bone with a jab. Brook was obviously not as strong as Canelo, but he was just as heavy as GGG in that ring, so you tell me. I remember Sergey Kovalev hit Cedric Agnew with a body shot that looked like literally nothing, and it broke Agnew's ribs. These guys hit hard. Paulie Malignaggi probably lands much more impressive punches, to this day, than GGG does, visually speaking, because of the speed of impact, but you can bet that GGG's jab is a harder punch than Malignaggi's right hand, so looks can deceiving, to some extent.

In other words, speed tends to look more impressive, but it doesn't equate to more powerful punches. Canelo hit Cotto with so many amazing looking punches that if GGG had that same speed and had been able to land those same punches on Cotto, Cotto would have been knocked out 5 different times in one fight. So, I'm just saying.

That's just my impression of it. I wanted GGG to win, I was disappointed in his performance overall, but I did think he won. What do you think?

Pretty good analysis, i just want to add that the crowd was very much pro Canelo at least until towards the end, and since he was really fast it was hard to tell if they were landing or not, but you could hear a majority of them hitting off ggg's gloves but he was still getting credit from the fans as if they were landing clean

[Unsuspected]

It's not decline - it's that the last two opponents have been Golovkin's best, including a 154 lbr. moving up. I don't care about a rematch with a blown up lt. middleweight. These two fights (Jacobs & Alvarez) have cemented why Golovkin and Sanchez wanted no part of Andre Ward. All the whining about not having a 'big fight' would have been settled by just stepping up one division. The boogieman at 168 would have popped that balloon in a hurry. I guarantee Golovkin wouldn't be laughing off Ward's counter shots on his way to a 12 round trouncing or late TKO loss. All other dominant champions get called out for not moving up once they clean out their division - it happened with Felix Trinidad, Floyd Mayweather, Finito Lopez, etc. In fact, weren't people complaining that Alvarez himself had to step up to 160 to prove himself? Meanwhile, Golovkin somehow gets a free pass to keep fighting no hopers or calling out guys one or even two divisions below him. The fact is Ward would have spanked him 10 times out of ten and he and his crew know it.

[jjsmyth87]

Even though I thought Ggg won I have to give Canelo credit, i think he gave Ggg his toughest fight so far, even better than Jacobs as I didnt see the ggg jacobs fight that close I though Ggg comfortably beat him by at least two rounds plus the knockdown. You cant really blame Canelo for backpedaling, there is no way to beat ggg coming forward he would have got knocked out. Oscar was the one saying canelo would come forward not canelo. Also I thought it was hilarious when canelo put him in the headlock and threw the punch behind the back, and that look ggg gave him afterwards lmao priceless