IBR on The Cruelest Sport

Some time after Gennady Golovkin scored a third-round knockout of Matthew Macklin, giving those in attendance at the MGM Grand at Foxwoods Resort, Mashantucket, Connecticut, the awful conclusion they paid for, Macklin remained in Child’s Pose on the canvas. Gasping, his face contorted in agony, Macklin went through a ritual of pain. It is a strange thing, pain; stranger still is the body’s responses. The reflexive writhing and clawing for distraction in movement—like a prisoner throwing himself against the bars of his cell—all that squirming in a futile bid to escape.

Read ANIMALIZED: Gennady Golovkin KO3 Matthew Macklin on The Cruelest Sport.

IBR on The Cruelest Sport

However destructive middleweight Gennady Golovkin’s career has been to this point, it has largely been the product of the how—not the whom. This is not to belittle the accomplishments of a fighter who has compiled a record of 26-0 with 23 knockouts: in boxing, the best platform for raising your profile remains the scaffold, and it is unlikely that either HBO or the public they occasionally represent becomes as enamored with Golovkin without the carnage he produces. But skepticism persists, primarily because ruining the likes of Nobuhiro Ishida does little more than emphatically restate the obvious. What Golovkin has long needed—and has struggled mightily to secure—is an opponent whose undoing would silence the critics. This Saturday, from the MGM Grand at Foxwoods Resort, Mashantucket, Connecticut, he faces just such a man.

Read The Monster Under The Bed: Gennady Golovkin-Matthew Macklin Preview on The Cruelest Sport.

IBR on The Cruelest Sport

“Cleaved from his consciousness on March 30th—a single right hand having stretched him prostrate across the bottom rope in Monaco—Nobuhiro Ishida became the latest victim in Gennady Golovkin’s violent odyssey from internet bugaboo to hurt machine du jour. As has become the norm, the question of Golovkin’s next opponent was picked up with enthusiasm, an enthusiasm that has tended to wane before the ink on the contract dries. Golovkin himself seems weary of the competition he has gored recently. However spectacular his evisceration of Gzergorz Proksa, his mulching of Gabriel Rosado, his anesthetizing of Ishida—the three opponents he has faced since HBO took an interest in him—Golovkin’s achievements have not insulated him from criticism. Whether this criticism is valid is debatable. That it stands to deaden Golovkin’s career however, is a claim with some substance.”

Read “Paradox City: Gennady Golovkin & The Politics Of Avoidance” on The Cruelest Sport.