Fearsome former middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin has been out of the ring for some time now and his promoter has recently given an update on his future.
Golovkin once held once of the longest knockout streaks in boxing. Often known by his nickname ‘GGG’ or ‘Triple G’, he has never yet been put down in any of his fighting career, including more than 350 amateur bouts.
He has held multiple middleweight world championships and was twice the unified champion at varying points between 2014 and 2023, and also moved up to super middleweight to challenge for all four major belts 2022.
He spent 12 months as The Ring Magazine’s pound-for-pound number one from 2017 and most famously had a trilogy with Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez that included three close fights and some contentious decisions.
Speaking to Boxing Scene, his promoter Tom Loeffler has admitted we might well now have seen the last of the great pressure fighter since the February announcement by the Kazakh National Olympic Committee that Golovkin would be its new president.
“I was always hoping for one more fight, whether it was a farewell fight in Kazakhstan, or one of these matchups you see in the Middle East, that type of thing.
“But that’s a very high position in Kazakhstan – he’s not only the head of Olympic boxing in the country, he’s the head of every sport of the national Olympic team in Kazakhstan. So, that’s a full-time job for him.”
On why he relinquished the titles, Loeffler said Golovkin had already achieved so much.
“There was no point. He had so many title defences around the world: selling out the O2 Arena in London [against Kell Brook in 2016], fighting Ryoto Murata and selling out the Saitama Arena [in 2022].
“That special night against Martin Murray in Monaco [in 2015] when we had Prince Albert and Princess Charlene ringside. There are just so many great memories with Triple G, and it just seems like he feels he’s accomplished everything he wanted to in boxing.”
If that is the end, the boxing world has lost one of its greats.