During his career, Bernard Hopkins had a historic reign in the middleweight division and one that is unmatched as he still stands as the only fighter to unify the WBO/WBA/WBC/IBF world titles.
Last weekend at New York's Madison Square Garden, Hopkins played the role of promoter in a unification fight between Gennady Golovkin and David Lemieux; a fight which saw Golovkin unify the WBA, IBO and IBF world middleweight titles with an eight round stoppage of Lemieux, who Hopkins promotes as a partner in Golden Boy Promotions.
Hopkins believes the division is in good hands with Golovkin (34-0, 31KOs).
“I played a small part in this fight in terms of historic significance,” Hopkins told BoxingScene.com. “I see the middleweight Division and it’s in good hands. It’s going to take a hell of a guy to beat a guy like Triple G.”
Though he feels it was a great night of boxing, Hopkins feels the fighters at the higher weights, like Andre Ward, might be problematic for a guy like Golovkin.
“I think aside from the late hit when Lemieux was down, I think it was a great night of boxing,” Hopkins explained.
“This card was positive for boxing and at the end of the day, we have a unified champion. Can’t take nothing away from Triple G. He was poised and patient. But I think Andre Ward is watching, even with the victory he got to be saying to himself, he see something, especially those guys in the upper divisions.”
According to Hopkins, a punch first fighter in Lemieux played to Golovkin’s style but a boxer like Ward might be the answer to the Kazakh middleweight.
“There’s a few fighters that are licking their chops right now, because they look at Lemiuex as a gunslinger,” stated Hopkins. “When you have shootouts, more than likely you can get got too.”
“But when you a gunslinger and you’re facing a sniper, you know where a sniper sits, he sits far away with the jab and hits you with the right hand you can’t see. A gunslinger shoots, he wants all the bullets to be in you. It takes discipline in spite of all talent to carry it through 30 plus minutes and understand you can be gotten too.”
Last weekend at New York's Madison Square Garden, Hopkins played the role of promoter in a unification fight between Gennady Golovkin and David Lemieux; a fight which saw Golovkin unify the WBA, IBO and IBF world middleweight titles with an eight round stoppage of Lemieux, who Hopkins promotes as a partner in Golden Boy Promotions.
Hopkins believes the division is in good hands with Golovkin (34-0, 31KOs).
“I played a small part in this fight in terms of historic significance,” Hopkins told BoxingScene.com. “I see the middleweight Division and it’s in good hands. It’s going to take a hell of a guy to beat a guy like Triple G.”
Though he feels it was a great night of boxing, Hopkins feels the fighters at the higher weights, like Andre Ward, might be problematic for a guy like Golovkin.
“I think aside from the late hit when Lemieux was down, I think it was a great night of boxing,” Hopkins explained.
“This card was positive for boxing and at the end of the day, we have a unified champion. Can’t take nothing away from Triple G. He was poised and patient. But I think Andre Ward is watching, even with the victory he got to be saying to himself, he see something, especially those guys in the upper divisions.”
According to Hopkins, a punch first fighter in Lemieux played to Golovkin’s style but a boxer like Ward might be the answer to the Kazakh middleweight.
“There’s a few fighters that are licking their chops right now, because they look at Lemiuex as a gunslinger,” stated Hopkins. “When you have shootouts, more than likely you can get got too.”
“But when you a gunslinger and you’re facing a sniper, you know where a sniper sits, he sits far away with the jab and hits you with the right hand you can’t see. A gunslinger shoots, he wants all the bullets to be in you. It takes discipline in spite of all talent to carry it through 30 plus minutes and understand you can be gotten too.”
Every trainer, fighter, and media person who was questioning GGG, although they may be sensitive over the hype, is giving GGG his due and admitting he is a monster.
at that comparison...mostly because pavlik was a limited plodder with little upper body movement (both things that contributed to why bhop and sergio whipped him like they dud) who happened to have some heavy hands...GGG has more dimensions in his game than kelly ever did
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