The Daily Mail, the United Kingdom's highest-circulated daily newspaper and online news source, recently published the list of Top 10 best boxers of the 21st century. As the newspaper notes, this is not the best fighter to have entered the ring this century - this list analyses the accomplishments achieved in the given timeframe.
Gennady Golovkin was ranked 10th and named one of the best middleweights ever to grace the sport. The 39-year-old Kazakhstani professional boxer, often known by his nickname "GGG" or "Triple G", is a two-time middleweight world champion, having held the IBF and IBO titles since 2019. He previously was ranked as the world's best boxer, pound for pound, from September 2017 to September 2018 by The Ring magazine.
Golovkin was born in the city of Karaganda in the Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union (present-day Kazakhstan) to a Russian coal miner father and Korean mother, who worked as an assistant in a chemical laboratory.
Golovkin began boxing competitively in 1993, when he was 11 years old, winning the local Karaganda Regional tournament in the cadet division. It took several years before he was allowed to compete against seniors, and seven years before he was accepted to the Kazakh national boxing team, and began competing internationally. In the meantime he graduated from the Karagandy State University Athletics and Sports Department, receiving a degree and a PE teacher qualification.
As of June 2021, Golovkin is ranked globally among the best boxers: the world's sixth best active boxer, pound for pound, by BoxRec, ninth by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board and tenth by Boxing Writers Association of America. He is also ranked as the world's best active middleweight by BoxRec, The Ring, and TBRB, and second by ESPN.
