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Last night in Verona, NY, on HBO Boxing After Dark, Grzegorz Proksa got a bit of a reality check from powerful middleweight Gennady Golovkin, who dominated their main event fight and won via fifth round TKO after scoring knockdowns in the first, fourth, and fifth rounds.
Proksa (28-2, 21 KO), a former two-time European middleweight champion, said he was really impressed with his opponent, and gave him full credit for the win:
"The guy hits like a hammer. I tried everything, but it did not work. You have to give him credit, because he had a good handle on the situation and it was an honor to meet him in the ring. Even though I lost every round, I wanted to fight on. ... There is no reason for us to have avoided fighting him - and I think today I fought not only the best fighter in my weight class, but perhaps even in the pound for pound rankings."
While the 27-year-old Proksa has never established himself as a world class fighter or anything, and thus I can sort of understand the skepticism some still have about going all over the moon with Golovkin, but shit, y'all, he whipped a good fighter's ass last night.
One of the comments in one of the earlier Golovkin threads mentioned something like this, and I agree so I'll steal it, because hey, I do what I want, jack, but I put Golovkin's win last night right on par with:
- Chavez's wins over Zbik, Manfredo, Rubio, and Lee.
- Martinez's wins over Barker and Dzinziruk.
I mean, really, is there that big a difference? Proksa lost to Kerry Hope earlier this year, sure, but I've seen Darren Barker get favorable cards against Domenico Spada and Affif Belghecham, too, so what's the real difference there? Barker's been on Sky more often? BFD.
This was a good win. I dunno, man. I know I can be a real negative nelly and a whiny pain in the ass and all that, but Golovkin impressed the hell out of me last night, clearly impressed the guy he battered, and I just don't see the reason for all this stuff where dudes are trying to shame me -- and you! all of us! THE PEOPLE! -- into further apathy about boxing and boxers. It's OK, you guys. Let your freak flag fly if you're down with what you saw last night. Party on with Gennady Golovkin. Golovkin 2012!