The Middleweight Reigns of Hopkins and GGG: Truth, Lies, and Statistics

When Emmitt Smith passed Walter Payton to become the NFL’s career rushing leader on Oct. 27, 2002, a distinction he still holds, more than a few Dallas Cowboys fans immediately pronounced him the greatest running back ever because, well, their guy now had the numbers to validate that assertion. But the longevity that enabled Smith to compile those indisputably impressive numbers were not conclusive enough to sway diehard supporters of Payton, Barry Sanders, Gale Sayers, Jim Brown and, who knows, maybe Jim Thorpe and Red Grange, that those splendid runners weren’t just as good or even better.

Someone once said that there is truth, lies and damn statistics, figures that can be interpreted in different ways and might or might not prove anything beyond reasonable doubt.  Virtually every starting NFL quarterback today throws for more yards than Hall of Famers Sammy Baugh and Otto Graham did way back when, given changing times and rules designed to advance the modern passing game. There is another saying that records are made to be broken, which may be so, but the erasure of an existing mark and the penciling in of another does not always allow for shifting landscapes and individual gut reaction.  Fans tend to believe what they want to believe, which is why some records are not and can never be as sacrosanct as others.

Should Gennady Golovkin (38-0-1, 34 KOs) defeat Canelo Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) in their HBO Pay Per View rematch Saturday night at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena, it would mark his 21^st consecutive middleweight title defense, snapping the division record of 20 he now shares with the iconic Bernard Hopkins. But would that fact alone certify “GGG” as the best of the best among middleweight champions, or better than B-Hop?  It is a nebulous area, in light of the fact that many legendary 160-pounders did not stay at the weight long enough to stitch together comparable streaks, or the reality that where once there was only one true middleweight ruler while now there are four presumably major sanctioning bodies which award alphabetized title belts, diluting the very concept of what a world champ is or is supposed to be.

Although Golovkin’s focus is primarily on Alvarez – they fought to a controversial and mutually dissatisfying split draw on Sept. 16 of last year — he is aware of the boxing history he is on the verge of possibly making and the specter of the very-much alive and chatty Hopkins that hangs over the bout.

“It’s very important for me to set this record,” Golovkin admitted. “It’s like going for two victories – to beat Canelo and to set the record.”

Added Tom Loeffler, Golovkin’s promoter: “It would be a tremendous accomplishment if GGG’s able to beat Bernard’s record. Most people thought 20 middleweight title defenses was untouchable. If Gennady, on this huge platform, is able to beat Canelo and break the record at the same time, that would be really be something.”

Like Loeffer, the 53-year-old Hopkins, now retired as an active boxer but still an executive with Golden Boy Promotions, whose most accomplished and marketable asset is Alvarez, didn’t expect his record, defense No. 20 coming when he scored a unanimous decision over Howard Eastman on Feb. 19, 2005, to be matched and possibly surpassed so soon. But the forever proud and defiant B-Hop is firm in his belief, at least publicly, that when all is said and done on Sept. 15 he will continue to hang onto his share of a record to which he absolutely does not want Golovkin to take sole possession.

“I never thought I’d be talking about this (his record conceivably falling) so early,” Hopkins said when contacted for this story. “I thought it would last 20, maybe 25 years. But at least my name is still in the conversation (as the co-record-holder). It’s really kind of a unique situation.

“Will I go over and shake Golovkin’s hand if he wins? It’s something I would rather not have to do, to be honest. There’s a competitive side of me that’s always going to be there no matter what I do in life. But you know what? I don’t think I’ll have to congratulate him for breaking the record because he’s not going to win. Canelo is super-confident. He’s younger (28 to GGG’s 36) and getting better and he’s fighting a guy who’s older and don’t know how to upgrade. I’ve been breaking down this fight for months and I have a good idea of how it’s going to play out.

“I’m calling this a unanimous decision, kind of lopsided, for Canelo. Now, there will be some fireworks. But when the fight gets into the championship rounds, GGG is going to be desperate. He’s a big puncher and big punchers always try to take their guy out early. He’s not going to know what to do when it’s late in the fight, he’s way behind on points and he finds himself in deep waters.”

There is a suspicion when listening to Hopkins that his lofty expectations of what Canelo is capable of doing against Golovkin are actually his imagination of what he could do against the knockout artist from Kazakhstan if they somehow could square off prime-on-prime. It is a notion that Hopkins does not reject out of hand.

“There’s always going to be a debate about who fought the better guys, but you can’t fault Gennady Golovkin for the quality of people that were and are in his era,” Hopkins continued. “His history is his history and my history is my history. He must be respected for what he’s done, regardless of what happens on Sept. 15.

“But if people insist on making comparisons, there are names on my resume, and on his, that we both can be proud of having beaten. Some other names, not so much. But you can only beat who’s put in front of you.

“That said, there’s no question I fought more quality opponents, and it’s not just (Felix) Trinidad and Oscar (De La Hoya). What about Joe Lipsey? Robert Allen? Glen Johnson? Howard Eastman? We could get into a cat fight on social media about this, but I ain’t going to play that game. Like him, I had to fight a few guys that weren’t top-rate – Morrade Hakkar, he ran around the ring like Carl Lewis – but I had to fight them because they were mandatories and I didn’t want to relinquish my title that way. I’m glad I took those fights because if I didn’t I wouldn’t be talking now about the record I still have.”

So, does Hopkins allow himself to play the what-if game of what would happen if he and GGG could have met at the top of their respective and tactically different forms?

“If I was fighting in my prime now, or if he was fighting me back then, he’d find out what ring generalship is all about,” Hopkins said. “You don’t put yourself in spots where you are vulnerable, you put the other guy in spots where he’s vulnerable. I made a living off of guys that came forward and wanted to bang. I knew how to make aggressive guys miss, and then I made them pay. GGG is going to realize what ring generalship is when he fights Canelo.”

Bold words, like statistics, are not really definitive proof of anything. If someone wants to say that Golovkin or Hopkins currently is the pugilistic version of Emmitt Smith because of their shared record, fine. But there are other middleweights who are always going to be mentioned for that figurative No. 1 all-time position, a who’s who list that includes the celebrated likes of Harry Greb, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Carlos Monzon and Sugar Ray Robinson, among others. The outcome of a fantasy pairing of the clever Hopkins and power-punching Golovkin does make for an interesting matchup of mental poker, however, and more so when the damnable numbers get pushed into the pot.

Of Hopkins’ 20 defenses (one was a four-round no-contest against Robert Allen on Aug. 28, 1998, when Hopkins inadvertently was pushed out of the ring by referee Mills Lane and injured his ankle) were against opponents who posted a cumulative record of 620-49-29 with 454 wins by stoppage and 23 losses by knockout. Three of those title bouts were against Allen, two against Antwun Echols. Golovkin’s 20 defenses all came against different opponents – the do-over with Alvarez marks his first championship rematch – who were a collective 574-59-10 with 381 KO wins and 19 losses inside the distance. Hopkins fought seven men who either had been or would become world champions, the same number as Golovkin. And where Hopkins scored signature victories against Trinidad and De La Hoya, GGG can counter with a points nod over Daniel Jacobs and the split draw with Canelo, which many believe should have resulted in a win.

If Hopkins is correct that his title reign came against a generally better grade of opposition, so too might be Loeffler’s claim that Golovkin’s efforts to enhance his legacy against big-name rivals has been thwarted in part by a reluctance by some of the marquee middleweights to trade punches with one of the most devastating punchers ever to grace the division.

“There’s a lot of names in the past that we would like to have gotten in the ring, but for whatever reason they chose not to fight Gennady, whether it was Felix Sturm or Sergio Martinez or Peter Quillin,” Loeffler said. “Gennady’s definitely had kind of a blue-collar career. He was willing to fight anyone, and anywhere. Now he’s in the T-Mobile Arena against Canelo Alvarez in the biggest fight of the year. It’s definitely a legacy fight for him.

“We’ll see the best fighting the best, and that’s really what the sport is all about. It’s what Gennady’s always wanted.”

Bernard Fernandez is the retired boxing writer for the Philadelphia Daily News. He is a five-term former president of the Boxing Writers Association of America, an inductee into the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Atlantic City Boxing Halls of Fame and the recipient of the Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism and the Barney Nagler Award for Long and Meritorious Service to Boxing.

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