Gennady Golovkin vs Kell Brook: Bear hunter Golovkin faces epic test against unbeaten welterweight champion

Brook has moved through the weights, having to gain 13 solid pounds of muscle, with a fearless grit that suggests either desperation for a rumble or a deep pot of cash as a distant incentive

Gennady Golovkin is in London to fight Kell Brook (Getty)

Gennady Golovkin arrives at a fight city with an eternal promise of giving “big drama” and so far he has left 32 of his 35 victims in various states of troubling and tumbling turmoil in a total of 21 different cities.

Golovkin is in London to fight Kell Brook, the quixotic unbeaten welterweight champion of the world, at the O2 on Saturday night in what will be his 18th consecutive world title fight. Each one has ended early; he tends to drop people and knock fighters out for fun with both hands.

Brook has moved through the weights, having to gain 13 solid pounds of muscle, with a fearless grit that suggests either desperation for a rumble or a deep pot of cash as a distant incentive; the true motivation is probably somewhere in the middle. Golovkin fights simply because he is good at it, good at separating men from the foolish assumptions they had before the first bell.

The first of his world middleweight title wins was in Panama in 2010 and it lasted just 58 seconds. The longest of the 17 world championship fights was in Monaco in 2015 and that trickled painfully into the 11th round before the referee decided that Martin Murray’s ribs could not take another second of abuse. “He hits you when you think he can’t, every shot hurts - really hurts. He is brilliant,” said Murray, a battler from St. Helens.

If there is a flaw, a tiny blemish on Golovkin’s resume, then it is the absence of the many men that have held a version of the world title during his rise from partial champion in 2010 to lord of the middleweights right now. Back in the brutal Eighties, a decade of forgotten boxing savagery, Marvin Hagler held the middleweight title for seven years, beat every top fighter and stopped 12 of the 13 men he beat in world title fights.

He seems to delight in embarrassing brave men and that in the boxing business is a great compliment. 

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It was the last decade when ancient fighting pride, not blind avarice, ruled the sport and it was a time when nobody would have dared walk into a bar, fondling a preposterous diamond-studded belt and claim to be the middleweight champion of the world at the same time as Hagler. We live in rich and lunatic days for boxing with over 80 men able to puff out their chests and make claims to be a world champion.

During Golovkin’s days as champion 18 different fighters have held a version of the middleweight world title – there are four at the moment, Hagler held all three belts – and Golovkin has met and crushed just two of them. The other sixteen have looked away, asked for a fortune, one even went to the Rio Olympics and a few have retired. He seems to delight in embarrassing brave men and that in the boxing business is a great compliment. Hagler shamed some of his fiercest rivals to fight, but shame is no longer a trading commodity, a reason for risking it all in an old-fashioned boxing match; the modern sport would somehow have conspired through foul tricks to keep Hagler and Golovkin in separate universes, each devoted to opposing paymasters in an orbit of the damned.

Kell Brook defeated Jo Jo Dan on his return to the ring after being stabbed (Getty Images)

Golovkin belongs with Hagler, another man that thrived on terrorising his opponents and the pair eschewed the trappings of glitz for the harsh rigours of training and fighting. Golovkin hunts bears and that is possibly one thing that would make Hagler jealous and to Hagler being jealous of any boxer was probably viewed as a weakness. The pair are more than throwbacks, a word too lazily attached to anybody with a fearless soundbite, and could have fought with honour in any epoch.

“I can’t really talk before a fight and right now I just like to fight,” said Golovkin. “He is unbeaten and will try to win. I am also unbeaten and I try to win – I think we are bringing a good fight for the fans and we will bring big drama fight.” Try it in a Borat voice. I can see Hagler sitting off to the side, eyeing up Golovkin’s frame and knowing from the Kazak’s simple words that the pair could have made some real drama. Hagler once told Bob Arum, his promoter, to make a fight happen: “Bob,” Hagler said. “I don’t care about the belts, the money, the TV Company, where the hell I gotta go to get him or what damned corner I’m in – just get me the fight.” That was the Hagler way and I truly believe that is the Golovkin way.