Former middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik wasn’t all that impressed with what he saw of the punching power of IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in his close 12 round unanimous decision win over Daniel Jacobs in their fight on March 18. Pavlik says the margin of victory for Golovkin was his knockdown of Jacobs in round 4. Pavlik feels that Golovkin lacked snap in his shots, especially in the later rounds of the fight.
Pavlik observed that Golovkin fought like his muscles were totally exhausted. Pavik noticed the same thing in Golovkin fight against David Lemieux in 2015. Pavlik isn’t sure if it’s a training issue or what with Golovkin. Whatever the problem is, he thinks he would have had problems if he fought in his era against the likes of himself, Arthur Abraham and Edison Miranda.
“A lot of people like me think Triple G squeaked it out,” said Pavllik to Fighthype.com. “To me, Triple G just looked…even when he fought Lemieux, he looks like he has a hard time and he don’t have the snap on his punches. I don’t know if it’s strength and conditioning or what it is, but especially in the championship rounds, it looks like he was totally spent muscle-wise,” said Pavlik.
Golovkin is one of those George Foreman type punchers. He throws hard shots, but not with a lot of speed. When Golovkin loads up with everything he has, he’s a dangerous puncher. Pavlik would have problems with Golovkin’s power if he were on the receiving end of his punches. I have no doubts that Golovkin would beat Pavlik quite easily if the two of them ever fought during Pavlik’s best years.
Pavlik was chewed up by Sergio Martinez, who Golovkin likely would have destroyed. I do think that Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez is overdoing it with his training for fights. I think he needed to back him off some of his training a couple of years ago when he started getting up there in age. Sanchez is working Golovkin too hard in training camp in my opinion, and not taking account of the fact that he’s now in his mid-30s. Sanchez is training Golovkin like he’s a younger fighter, and I think that’s tearing him down and leaving him spent by the time he fights. It’s unfortunate that Sanchez can’t step back and see for himself that he’s got Golovkin overtraining for his fights. He’s training like he’s going into a long distance marathon rather than training him for strength.
I think Golovkin lacks hand speed, and that makes him look like he lacks snap in his shots. But if you look at Golovkin’s fights against Jacobs and Lemieux, he really wasn’t loading up on his shots in either of those fights. He was throwing moderately powerful punches rather than putting everything into the shots. Jacobs must have felt the power, because he wasn’t coming forward, especially after he was knocked down. Even in the later rounds, Jacobs never attacked Golovkin in a consistent manner like he does when facing lesser opposition. That’s why he lost the fight.
”Maybe the strategy of Jacobs, because if I was a betting man, I would put a lot of money down that Jacobs was 20 pounds heavier,” said Pavlik.
I wouldn’t call it a strategy that Jacobs was the heavier guy in the fight. Jacobs has gotten bigger recently, and he’s a heavy guy for the middleweight. Over 20 of Jacob’s fights as a pro have been in the super middleweight division. He’s basically a super middleweight that boils down to fight at middleweight. He’s probably doing himself no favors by choosing to stay at middleweight, because he would be stronger at 168, and would be capable of winning a world title in that division. If Jacobs stays at 160, he’s going to have problems if he ever faces Jermall Charlo or Saul Canelo Alvarez. Jacobs might not care if he has problems against Canelo because the money he gets for the fight will be well worth it for him even if he gets knocked out.
17,000 tickets sold in first day of sales for Kell Brook vs. Errol Spence fight
The ticket sales got off to a fast start on Friday with 17,000 tickets sold for the May 27 fight between IBF World welterweight champion Kell Brook and Errol Spence Jr. for their fight at the 32,000 seat Bramall Lane in Sheffield, UK. The ticket sales show that boxing fans are very interested in this fight. There was some complaining from a segment of fans that believed that Spence wasn’t a big enough name to attract interest from the British boxing fans in the UK. The 17,000 tickets sold on Friday shows that the fans are eager to this fight. Brook didn’t have a choice whether to take the fight or not. He had to face Spence, as he was ordered by the International Boxing Federation to defend his belt against him. The only way Brook could have gotten out of the fight is by vacating.
The Brook-Spence fight will be televised in the UK on Sky Sports Box Office, as well as in the States on Showtime Championship Boxing.
This is by far the hardest fight of Brook’s welterweight career. Since winning an ugly clinch-filled decision over Shawn Porter in 2014, Brook has defended his IBF title against Frankie Gavin, Kevin Bizier and Jo Jo Dan. In Brook’s last fight in September, he moved up to middleweight to face champion Gennady Golovkin, and ended up getting stopped by him in the 5th round after suffering a broken right eye socket. Brook is kind of in denial about the loss, saying that he thinks he was getting to Golovkin, and would have won the fight if not for the injury. In looking at that fight, Brook would have been in trouble even if he’d been injury free.
Spence beat Leonard Bundu by a 6th round knockout last August in Coney Island, New York. The win locked Spence in as Brook’s IBF mandatory challenger.
Brook is going to have problem with the body punching from Spence in this fight, and pressure that he’ll be putting him under.
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