FOR many people, Daniel Jacobs represents the toughest assignment middleweight king Gennady Golovkin has ever been set. Ahead of the heavy-handed duo’s highly anticipated encounter at Madison Square Garden in New York this Saturday (March 18), we list Golovkin’s five best wins, in ascending order.
5. Daniel Geale rsf 3
Under two years previously, Geale had reigned as a unified world middleweight ruler, but Golovkin needed only three rounds to dispatch the usually durable Aussie – scoring one of his most eye-catching finishes to boot.
4. Matthew Macklin ko 3
Another respected Golovkin foe to fall in just three frames was Birmingham’s Matthew Macklin. In the two preceding years, the Briton had pushed top middleweights Felix Sturm and Sergio Martinez extremely hard, but “GGG’s” sickening strikes to the body proved Macklin’s undoing.
3. Martin Murray rsf 11
Like his countryman Macklin, Murray had caused Sturm and Martinez all sorts of trouble prior to challenging Golovkin. But also like Macklin, the brave St Helens man succumbed to Gennady’s punishing power and relentless assaults, although he managed to make it to the penultimate round.
2. Kell Brook rsf 5
The third and final British victim on Golovkin’s hit list, the fearsome Kazakh became the first – and so far only – fighter to vanquish welterweight champ Brook when he broke the Sheffield star down in five sessions on away turf in the UK.
1. David Lemieux rsf 8
In a clash of bulldozing bangers, Golovkin made use of his fantastic jab to dissect Lemieux, before hammering him to defeat in the eighth. The standout victory saw Gennady add the Canadian’s IBF belt to the WBA title he already owned.
