Like baseball's Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris in the 1960s, unified middleweight titlist Gennady Golovkin and flyweight champion Roman Gonzalez have become reluctant rivals, sportsmen thrown together by fate, whose individual performances are critically compared with one another whether they like it or not.
The "M & M boys" were chasing the ghost of Babe Ruth, blasting baseballs out of parks at a record-setting pace, while "GGG" and "Chocolatito" are obliterating opponents in a race to claim the mythical pound-for-pound title. True, the tools of their trade are different, but both sets of athletes deal in the same currency -- the adrenaline rush that keeps you coming back for more.
Home runs are baseball's equivalent of boxing's knockouts and vice versa, their respective sport's core attraction. The unequivocal nature of both speaks to everyone in a way that a pitchers' duel or a Floyd Mayweather-esque master class might not. And although a home run contest can be quantified, boxing's pound-for-pound contest -- a fanciful abstraction to start with -- remains highly subjective, bordering on a popularity contest.
Mantle and Maris both played for the New York Yankees, but the Golovkin-Gonzalez coupling has been a shrewd piece of marketing by HBO. Pairing boxing's two most captivating knockout artist guarantees fans a double-dip of ultra violence -- always a good thing.
Although they are bound to go their separate ways eventually, Gonzalez and Golovkin will probably be linked for the foreseeable future. Co-starring in three consecutive televised cards, the third of which took place last Saturday at The Forum in Inglewood, California, could be just the beginning.
The contrast between Golovkin's quick annihilation of Dominic Wade and Chocolatito's one-sided but somewhat labored decision over McWilliams Arroyo seemed, at least superficially, to indicate GGG's superiority. But is that a fair evaluation?
Let's take a closer look at that assumption and beyond. A good place to start would be by examining the relative merits of the B-side boxers in the opposing corners.
Wade was in over his head so deeply he should have worn a snorkel instead of a mouthpiece. Nothing in his 18-0 (12 KOs) record indicated he was even remotely prepared to face Golovkin. That a split decision over 41-year-old Sam Soliman was the best result on his résumé should have told us all we needed to know.
The utter hopelessness of his situation was emphasized when the designated victim landed a three-punch combination early in the first round. The blows were apologetically soft and confirmed the worse: Wade was a toothless tiger.
Three rights to the head and a trio of resulting knockdowns brought things to conclusion at the 2:37 mark of the second round, much to the delight of the capacity crowd of 16,353. They were there to see Golovkin render a man unconscious and he'd delivered.
Wade probably felt like the world had caved in on his head, and in a sense it had, especially the career-path part.
How much longer consumers will remain satisfied with noncompetitive muggings starring the charming young assassin from Kazakhstan remains to be seen. During the broadcast, HBO analyst Max Kellerman compared GGG's knockout streak to Mike Tyson's five-year reign of terror at the start of his career.
But by the time Tyson stopped Carl Williams in less than two minutes in July 1989, the thrill was beginning to wane. As riveting as Tyson was, his fights had become expensive clichés. That's why Mike met his Waterloo in Tokyo rather than a jaded stateside casino.
Golovkin, however, is still in the honeymoon phase of his career. Most of the ire has been directed at those thought to be ducking him, first Miguel Cotto and then Canelo Alvarez.
The merciless precision of Golovkin's aggressive style has been a welcome counterbalance to a decade of Mayweather's boring brilliance, and despite Wade's shortcomings nobody asked for their money back.
Things didn't go down quite as smoothly for Chocolatito, who has risen spectacularly since first being introduced to U.S. audiences thanks to his intoxicating brand of scientific slugging and glossy knockout percentage.
Following Saturday's fights, who's your No.1 pound-for-pound fighter?
- ESPN Boxing (@ESPNBoxing) April 24, 2016
A dominant, near-shutout decision apparently wasn't enough, not for the new pound-for-pound supremo. He was expected to stop Arroyo, or at the very least score a couple of knockdowns. But there stood Arroyo at the sound of the final bell, lumped up and weary but still upright, where he had managed to stay throughout 12 rounds of relentless abuse.
A former Puerto Rican Olympian and winner of flyweight gold at the Pan Am Games, Arroyo is a far superior fighter to Wade, which significantly skews any comparison between Golovkin's and Gonzalez's performances. Triple-G might very well turn out to be a better fighter than Chocolatito, but crushing Wade was far from the deciding factor.
There were, however, several troubling differences in the way Gonzalez fought that are worthy of note.
His punches lacked their usual authority. Granted, Arroyo's mobility and defensive shifts made him a slippery target, but, according to CompuBox, Chocolatito connected with 360 blows. Surely that should be more than enough to bring down his man.
Gonzalez prefers rivals who come to him. What puncher doesn't? But he's normally just as adept at tracking down and liquidating movers. The key is his uncanny ability to unload four-, five- and six-punch combinations as effortlessly as a fry cook flips burgers. It's seldom the first shot that does the damage against savvy defensive boxers. It's usually the back end of the fusillade that connects. Sheer volume leaves no place to hide.
Chocolatito goes after his victims like a one-man wolf pack, relentlessly attacking again and again, first from one angle and then from another, until his work is done. But something wasn't quite right against Arroyo. His punches were not as concussive as usual and lacked their normal zip. Down the stretch, the best Gonzalez could muster was one or maybe two determined assaults a round. He was still kicking butt, but not in the manner to which we have become accustomed.
Most likely, Chocolatito's less-than-sensational showing against Arroyo was the result of being weight drained. All the pieces -- the absence of snap on his punches, the gradual slowing of his offense as the bout progressed, the inability score a knockdown of a badly beaten opponent -- fit the profile. Then there were the images of Roman holding a digital scale, as he stared broodily at the camera, that were posted on the internet at regular intervals during the countdown to fight day.
It's time to move up. Chocolatito needs to forgo the "one more fight" at flyweight he mentioned and eat a few more pancakes for breakfast. At age 28, his prime flyweight days are rapidly coming to an end.
There is no lack of quality opposition at 115, ranging from Japanese prodigy Naoya Inoue to Mexico's unbeaten Carlos Cuadras. There's also Arroyo's undefeated brother, McJoe Arroyo, and Juan Francisco Estrada, who gave Chocolatito his toughest fight to date and would be glad to pack on 3 pounds for another opportunity.
Do you think @Canelo will fight @GGGBoxing in September?
- ESPN Boxing (@ESPNBoxing) April 24, 2016
Golovkin's options, however, are limited. Alvarez is the only opponent with the status to supply him with the signature win he needs to become a major PPV star. It's the biggest fight in boxing right now, but assuming Canelo beats Amir Khan on May 7, as he is favored to do, there's no guarantee Golovkin will be next.
WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman did a bit of symbolic arm twisting, saying, "If Canelo beats Khan and does not meet his obligation to face Golovkin, then the WBC will have no choice but to strip Canelo of his belt."
Whether Sulaiman makes good on his promise really doesn't matter. Canelo's position as the sport's top PPV attraction is far more valuable than the WBC belt. It's difficult to know whether Alvarez's insistence on defending the title at a catch-weight of 155 pounds is simply a divalike power play or an excuse to duck Golovkin. Maybe a bit of both.
Regardless, there's no denying that Golovkin needs Canelo more than Canelo needs him. And if the Alvarez-Khan fight generates healthy PPV numbers, Canelo's ability to dictate terms will be even stronger. His replies when pressed on his supposed obligation to fight Golovkin have been nebulous at best.
But "Big Drama Show" still has his "Little Drama Show" buddy to play with. The massive disparity in size precludes settling matters in the ring, of course, but their informal rivalry has been a fun sidelight to some hard- core fighting. A couple of encores before the final curtain does come down on their unofficial partnership wouldn't hurt. You just know somebody is going to get knocked out.