Gennady Golovkin

In the last 20 years Kazakhstan has become one of the top countries in amateur boxing with the likes of Bakhtiyar Artayev, Vassiliy Jirov and Serik Sapiyev (all Val Barker trophy winners since 1996). Sadly despite the amateur success it really hasn't translated to the same level of professional success with only a handful of professional champions (including Anatoly Alexandrov and Jirov).

Despite the lack of professional champions in the 1990's and early part of the 21st century Kazakhstan has burst on to the professional scene in recent with WBA Light Heavyweight champion Beibut Shumenov and WBA Middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (27-0, 24) a fighter some are talking up as the best Middleweight not named Sergio Martinez.

Like the fighters mentioned above Golovkin is from the amateur conveyor belt that Kazakhstan seems to have going on. Although he failed to secure a gold medal at the Olympic games he did pretty much everything else as an amateur, in fact his amateur credentials are nothing short of amazing.

Starting with his first major international tournament in 2000 as a teenager Golovkin was on a tear winning the Brandenburg Cup in Germany and the World Junior Championships in Hungary. In fact through those two tournaments no one even came close to defeating Golvokin who stopped 2 of his 7 opponents in those competitions and outscored the other 5 by a total score of 111:45.

Golovkin's run of destruction continued to grow and in 2001 he claimed yet more titles including the Grand Prix in the Czech Republic and the East-Asian Games gold medal, defeating current IBF Middleweight champion Daniel Geale in the final.

Surprisingly Golovkin would twice be upset in international fights in 2002 losing on count back to Damian Austin in the final of the Chemistry cup and losing narrowly to Suriya Prasathinpimai in the Kings Cup in Prasathinpimai native Thailand. Despite these set backs however Golovkin got back to winning ways and went on to compete at the World Cup (winning his 4 bouts) and claim gold at the Asian Games gaining revenge over Prasathinpimai in the final.

Having by now established himself as one of the standout amateurs in Asia it was in 2003 that Golovkin proved he was one of the stand outs world wide and despite losing to Andre Dirrell at the Dual Nations (USA v Kazakhstan) he would soon go on to claim the World Amateur Championships in Bangkok. Amongst his victims in the World Championships were Matt Korobov (highly decorated Russian amateur), Andy Lee (who lost in 2012 to Julio Cesar Chavez Jr in a WBC World title bout), Lucian Bute (former IBF Super Middleweight champion), Yordanis Despaigne (highly decorated Cuban amateur) and Oleg Mashkin (who competed at the 2004 Olympics).

Sadly despite defending his Asian title in 2004 Golovkin couldn't add an Olympic gold medal to his collection, instead needing to make do with Silver as he narrowly lost in the final to Russian Gaydarbek Gaydarbekov, though he did gain some revenge over Andre Dirrell in the Semi Final of the Athens Olympics.

Following the Olympics Golovkin failed to really continue to dominate like he had done and suffered losses to Nikolay Galochkin, Eduard Gutknecht and Mohamed Hikal whilst only scoring one more really notable win, defeating Yordanis Despaigne in the 2005 World Cup.

Instead of remaining as an amateur and waiting until the 2008 Olympics Golovkin turned professional and made his debut in May 2006 stopping Gabor Balogh in just 88 seconds. By the end of the year Golovkin had raced away to 6-0 (6) and had amassed 17 rounds of professional experience. Although he was beating genuinely poor competition his talent was obvious as he showed multiple facets to his game and really allowed himself to get comfortable to fighting with out the head gear.

In 2007 Golovkin started to step up his level of competition taking out Siarhei Khomitski in 5 rounds and out pointing Mehdi Bouadla over 8 rounds (in his first distance bout). His competition again rose in 2008 as he defeated Ian Gardner (again over 8 rounds) before Amar Amari also saw out the distance. By the end of 2008 Golvokin had impressively seen his record reach 14-0 (11) and although he bagged 4 more wins in 2009 he failed to beat anyone of any great significance despite picking up the WBO Inter-Continental Middleweight title.

Golovkin finally landed on the world stage in 2010 by claiming the WBA "interim" Middleweight title by stopping Milton Nunez in 58 seconds. This title was soon upgraded to being the WBA's regular Middleweight title, and Golovkin made his first defense just months later stopping Nilson Julio Tapia in 3 rounds.

In his second title defense, in 2011, Golovkin was given his toughest test to date as former IBF Light Middleweight champion Kassim Ouma took him through a number of torrid rounds before finally being stopped in round 10. Whilst Ouma is always difficult this was a very under-whelming performance by Golovkin who got hit a lot by Ouma who was holding his own for much of the bout. It didn't take long for Golovkin to put the poor showing against Ouma behind him as he blasted out the experienced (though undeserving challenger) Lajuan Simon in eye catching fashion.

Golovkin's title reign went from bad to worse as he faced, and stopped, the hugely over-matched Japanese challenger Makoto Fuchigami who simply wasn't capable of denting Golovkin or making him break a sweat before being stopped in round 3.

Thankfully for Golovkin he has now made his US debut stopping former 2 time European champion Grzegorz Proksa in dominating fashion. Although Golovkin was originally scheduled to fight Dmitry Pirog in a WBO/WBA unification bout, Pirog was forced to pull out leaving the door open for the Proksa fight which forced many in the US to accept that Golovkin was a real threat in the division

Since the Proksa bout Golovkin has fought 3 times, twice in the US. He has stopped all 3 of those opponents, with Gabriel Rosado busted up, Nobuhiro Ishida lying unconscious and Matthew Macklin left in agony from a left hook to the body.

Although many had criticised him for facing Rosado and Ishida, two natural Light Middleweights his destruction of Macklin proved that his power could hurt "genuine" Middleweight. In fact his power would quite easily carry up to Super Middleweight where he could again be a serious danger man.

Now clearly the top contender to the Middleweight crown behind Sergio Gabriel Martinez, there is little argument against a Golovkin/Martinez bout.