Gennady Golovkin

Boxing

Kazakhstani fighter Gennady Golovkin has held world middleweight titles in the IBF, the WBA and the IBO, and from 2017 to 2018 was regarded as the best pound-for-pound boxer on the planet by The Ring magazine. Golovkin won his first championship in 2010, knocking out Milton Nunez 58 seconds into the first round to claim the WBA’s interim world title. He won his second a year later, knocking out Lajuan Simon in the first round to take the vacant IBO crown. Golovkin knocked out Marco Antonio Rubio in the second round on Oct. 18, 2014, to win his third, the vacant WBC interim title. It was his 28th knockout in 31 professional fights, all victories. Golovkin did not lose a fight as a pro until Sept. 15, 2018, when he dropped a majority decision to Saul Alvarez in Las Vegas. He’d gone into the fight with a record of 38-0-1, with 34 knockouts. Golovkin lost all his titles in his bout with Alvarez, but won each of them back within the next three years. Golovkin fought 350 times as an amateur. He won the gold medal as a middleweight at the 2003 world championships. At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, he won the silver medal in the middleweight division, losing on points in the final to Russian boxer Gaydarbek Gaydarbekov.