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Twenty six professional fighters have laced up the gloves against middleweight Gennady Golovkin since the 2004 Olympic Silver Medallist joined the paid ranks and not one of them has defeated the Kazakh phenomenon; tonight at Foxwoods Casino in Mashantucket, CT, British hardman Matthew Macklin will take the Golovkin test.
Matthew Macklin will not be the only one being tested this evening as Gennady Golovkin, despite being hailed as a veritable beast at 160 pounds and defending the WBA belt on six occasions, has yet to face a current world class foe.
Is Macklin truly a top of the line middleweight?
The 31 year old from Birmingham’s claim to that status are performances against Felix Sturm and Sergio Martinez in 2011 and 2012 respectively, and Macklin did very well in both fights, making his statements that he has fought better competition than Gennady Golovkin to be clearly true.
However, a look at Sturm’s resume reveals a protected boxer who had been put in with far less then world level opponents for years and the Martinez of 2012 was clearly not the same guy who had destroyed Paul Williams and given Kelly Pavlik a boxing lesson.
Does that mean Matthew Macklin is dreaming when he says he’ll knock out Golovkin? Absolutely not, regardless of who he has fought, Macklin has developed into a smart, tough opponent who is far, far better then he was when he lost to Jamie Moore and Andrew Facey years ago in the UK.
But by the same token, Gennady Golovkin, regardless of who he has been put in against thus far, can really fight. And, more importantly, can really punch.
He destroyed the very beatable but always durable Nobuhiro Ishida last time out, and previously tore apart good boxers Gabe Rosado and Grzegorz Proksa.
The fight tonight should provide answers to questions surrounding both Golovkin and Macklin but the winner of this bout will likely be the man that can take more punishment.
Gennady Golovkin likes to go in on opponents early. If he can get them backing up as he did against Rosado and Proksa, he patiently hunts them down, cutting off the ring and delivering a beating on the ropes that usually ends with a body shot or uppercut.
If the opponent holds their ground, as Ishida did, Golovkin uses a good jab and lead left hook to produce damage from the outside, slipping jabs to dial in right hands and powerful lefts to the body as the action gets in close.
Macklin likes to hold the center of the ring, using good head movement, a probing jab and a hard straight right to the body to close distance before getting behind a high guard on the inside and slugging it out with short counter hooks and uppercuts.
This should be a good action fight from the start as Macklin is unlikely to give ground when Golovkin advances in the first frame, a round which should look like the middle of most bouts.
Both fighters are hittable. Golovkin is sucsceptible to straight punches, particularly right hands and Macklin has a good one of those but Matthew Macklin also drops his left when he throws that punch and if that continues against Golovkin, it could be trouble for the challenger.
What it really comes down to in this one is how well Macklin can handle Golovkin’s power. If he can’t, the fight probably won’t go past three rounds but if he can, then we get into how well Macklin has conserved his energy into the later rounds, something that he has had a problem with at times in the past.
If Macklin can take Golovkin’s best shots and back up the champion while keeping patient and composed, he could end up exposing the reason Golovkin hasn’t been thrown in with top fighters thus far. Dodgy chin? Iffy stamina? Can’t fight backing up under heavy pressure?
But, he will have to walk through a wall of fire in the form of Golovkin’s power and skill in order to do so.
Golovkin isn’t jaded like Sturm or an older fighter like Martinez and Macklin isn’t a blown up light middle like Ishida or Rosado.
This one should be a very good fight for as long as it lasts.
Join in tonight on the live boxing forum chat thread… Matthew Macklin v Gennady Golovkin- Saturday Night Fight Chat Thread
