Gennady Golovkin and Manny Pacquiao can fight at a catchweight, but should they? (Photo : Fightnights.com)
Sometimes, we simply ask too much of our modern day gladiators.
While it is conceivable that eight-division boxing world champion Manny "Pacman" Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KO's) could face undefeated middleweight king Gennady "GGG" Golovkin (34-0, 31 KO's) at some sort of catchweight, the sheer size difference cannot be ignored.
So why the clamor for such a matchup of epic proportions? Because Pacquiao, in all his greatness, is a symbol of defying odds.
Pacquiao's rags-to-riches tale of how he overcame extreme poverty to live out his dream of becoming a professional boxer and making it big in the sport is downright inspiring. How he climbed through weight divisions, often facing opponents much bigger than he was, and then ultimately, decimating them in the ring is the stuff of legend.
Pacquiao was never supposed to be a welterweight. If history played out the way it was supposed to, Pacquiao never fights Oscar Dela Hoya, he never battles Miguel Cotto for the welterweight title, he never knocks out Ricky Hatton at junior welterweight.
No. If Pacquiao was just an ordinary world champion, he would have stayed at super featherweight, camped in that division and held on to the world title for as long as he could, testing worldwide talent young and old. And he would have had a fine career had he done so.
But Pacquiao is not your ordinary fighter. He is the sport's icon, a symbol of how one man can defy the odds and rise up against adversity, making anything seem possible.
When Pacquiao fought, and beat, Antonio Margarito for the middleweight championship of the world, that's when people knew the sky was the limit.
And this is in extreme confidence that I can say that fighting Golovkin however, is simply otherworldly and should not be attempted.
The reason is because Golovkin, all 160 pounds of him, is made of the same cloth as Pacquiao himself.
Golovkin is that kind of generational talent that just seems to be an unstoppable force. Even now, if you look at the middleweight landscape and across the neighboring weight divisions, there seems to be no one that can give him a legitimate challenge.
Yes, Andre Ward exists and the two will meet at some point. It will be a shame if they don't, but as it stands, Golovkin currently has no equal.
The winner of the upcoming Miguel Cotto - Canelo Alvarez super fight will be up next for Golovkin if everything plays out the way they should. That winner's title reign will be short-lived.
Golovkin is simply a beast of a man who just happens to be a boxer.
The good thing is that Golovkin has no interest in fighting Pacquiao despite the interest in seeing the two in the ring with each other. Too small, he says. Instead, Golovkin wants a piece of Mayweather, but Mayweather won't go anywhere near him.
When you have a guy like Mayweather, in all his defensive genius, dismissing any notion of a fight with Golovkin, then you know he's the real deal.
Golovkin may be the most avoided man in the sport, more so than even the defensive stalwart Guillermo Rigondeaux himself. Which is a shame really, because it may mean we never get to see him reach his full potential.
