Golovkin scored yet another stoppage tonight in Monte Carlo, Monaco, in a surprisingly absorbing contest with Ghanaian Osumanu Adama?
Gennady Golovkin scored yet another stoppage tonight in Monte Carlo, Monaco, in a surprisingly absorbing contest with Ghanaian Osumanu Adama. Adama was an unheralded opponent and was justified, in the main, as stay-busy opposition for a fighter seen by many as the uncrowned champion of the division.
Not that Golovkin doesn?t carry belts, every fighter of even middling status has a collection these days and the glitter of gold often brings the best out of an underqualified fighter. So it was with Adama, who inflicted upon ?Triple G? a rather messy first minute before the Kazakhstani appeared to get the measure of his man, looking both quick and accurate, quartering the ring in neat and tiny increments. Adama did not panic however, which is what made the final seconds of the round so shocking. The organized, seemingly unintimidated Adama was dropped by a Golovkin jab. The punch caught the African, unfairly named a journeyman in some corners of the internet, slightly off balance as he had just landed his own punch, a sharp uppercut that seemed, momentarily, to upset Golovkin, who powered out a jab, almost in anger. Adama had made the mistake of hanging around in the pocket to admire the punch he had just landed, which in fairness was the best shot of the round, and it cost him. He stiffened immediately, and although Golovkin landed a right hand as Adama began to topple, it was the jab that put him down. Disaster seemed a heartbeat away, despite the round finishing right behind the action ? but it was not to be.
Golovkin came out jabbing in the second but Adama spotted the opening he left behind and immediately landed the right to the body. It reminded me that, like any true destroyer, Golovkin is leaky defensively. Although it might prove critical, that is not necessarily a criticism, it is simple truism of the sport. Destroying fighters move forwards and throw punches, their job, specifically is to decrease the peace. But patience is a real virtue for a destroyer, for a really good one it can be the cherry on the cake. George Foreman had none, to his great detriment; Joe Louis had an abundance and it made him preeminent. The signs are that Golovkin has it too, and whilst I?m not making a direct comparison with Joe Louis at this time ? nor even George Foreman ? I think it is crucial to his development.
But the remainder of the second round was about Adama. Here was a fighter clearly out of his depth who now had to make do, and, in the name of his country which he said pre-fight ?needed a champion,? he did so, swapping punches to see if his durability would bail him out in the short term. It was a spirited rally although Golovkin just waited him out before tightening the screws in the final minute, hurtling a sharp and deadly left hook over the top. With thirty seconds remaining, he went to the other hand, landing a shuddering right over the top ? yes, Adama had durability.
Possibly no middleweight in history could take these punches as strategy so Adama needed to think of something else, and in the third he began to move his upper body, not to slip individual punches but to create a moving target of his upper torso and head. This, he married to a strategy of busy punching and between them, these tactics propped up his inferior footspeed. Golovkin won the round, but it was Adama?s best of the fight, and he warmed to the challenge before him, even shucking backwards with his arms by his sides at one point ? he came very close to running onto a left hook and his hands remained bolted to his face for the remainder.
Golovkin force-fed him two horrible uppercuts in the fourth, one with either hand, but the Ghanaian kept swaying and punching, swaying and punching, and by the end of the round, another one for Golovkin, the Kazakhstani was looking just a little perplexed ? and from his nose there came blood, not a lot but enough that it could be noticed during the action. Adama fought the fifth like he was ranked top ten, his high energy style clicking. In the first four rounds he had paid a price in workrate that he could not hope to expect to maintain for twelve rounds and it was only barely enough to keep his deadly opponent from him, but in the fifth, up until the final minute, it looked like he would finally steal a frame. I even thought, for a moment, that Golovkin had been troubled by a hard right hand thrown over the top as he looked to back up a bit, a move that took Adama so much by surprise that he missed the next four punches that he threw. When Golovkin sprung his trap ? he had been showing that most important of virtues, patience, waiting for Adama rather than forcing his hand ? you could almost hear the African?s heart crack. Golovkin turned brawler, hands low, swarming forth, there?s an uppercut, a left hook to the body and Adama tries to hold, to rescue the round he thought he had won, and Golovkin just throws him off, the referee is not needed to break the clinch because Golovkin has the strength to break it himself.
In the sixth, Adama began to show signs of real distress. He twice spat his mouthpiece and was warned by the referee. Golovkin has that puncher?s trance, that infliction of a sense of impending doom for any overwhelmed opponent, a sense that some brutal mugger may be lurking just out of sight of that doomed opponent. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as the referee waved them back in and Golovkin just walked into range and stood there, looking to trade punches now against a spent force, he sensed Adama?s weakness after that emotionally torrid fifth as well as anyone and when Golovkin dumps him unceremoniously on the canvas again, this time with the type of left uppercut/left hook combination that trainers don?t even show most amateurs because they are simply too dangerous, it seemed that the blinds had been closed. Adama was up at four though and although he looked all in at the bell he was front and center in the seventh only to be dropped straight to his knees once again by a jab. Not so much a jab as a guided missile, a punch that began somewhere in the boots and terminated somewhere in the mysteries of the nervous system. It was a perfect jab ? a perfect, perfect punch and when, a minute later, Golovkin landed dual left hooks the referee stepped in to stop the fight.
Many people will berate that decision, but I am not one of them. First of all, Adama, though he was fighting back even at the point when the first left hook landed up around his ear, he looked, to all intents and purposes, defeated. The second left hook ? that slashed across his face like the broadside swipe of a tiger out to disfigure rather than kill ? was a punch that left a faraway look in Adama?s eyes. In combination with the type of punches he was swallowing and his inability to keep his gumshield in during the sixth it was disturbing.
Giving the benefit of the doubt to the man closest is certainly easy for me tonight. There was a killer on the loose.
Adama, likely, has done himself little harm with a brave and thoughtful performance. He was not as far away from taking Daniel Geale?s bauble as the judge?s scorecards say and he proved himself game and brave and willing to fight here tonight, he is not quitter. Hopefully there are paydays in his eye.
And Golovkin? He is, forgive me, a beast from the east. Beast is his nature, beast is the only word that comes to mind, although his thinking, patient planning tonight makes mockery of my saying so. Nevertheless I do say so.
The silence that greets the announcement of Sergio Martinez?s next opponent will be deafening, but the opponent after that, should it be anyone other than Golovkin, will be greeted with accusations of a duck.
Let me be frank: it may be in Martinez?s best interests to do so.
