Making the Amazing Look Routine: Is Gennady Golovkin Too Good?

Brondby Hallen, a quaint building on the outskirts of Copenhagen, Denmark, is not one of boxing's legendary arenas. Best known for hosting the 1978 World Handball Championship, it's featured boxing only three times in the last decade. 

None of those fights are particularly significant—but one stands out, if only as a historical footnote. The date was June 21, 2008. The opponent an unknown Frenchman named Amar Amari—the last boxer to push the fearsome Gennady Gennadyevich Golovkin the distance in a prize fight.

In the eight years since that eight-round decision, Golovkin has steamrolled all 23 opponents who have dared enter the ring with him. And that list of brave souls, unfortunately, gets smaller as his legend grows.

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On Saturday, Britain's Kell Brook, the IBF welterweight champion, pitted his considerable skill against the great one. Despite some early success, it was not nearly enough for Brook. Golovkin, as he does so routinely, stalked his prey and scared Brook's corner to the core, prompting an early stoppage as Brook attempted to wobble his way through the fifth round with an injured eye.

Once upon a time, Golovkin showed the vestiges of his past as an amateur champion. He darted in and out, worked behind a jab, avoided punishment when possible. In short, he was a boxer. Today, he's more monster than man, an avatar of the inevitable, an unshrinking, untiring wave of violence. 

His boxing has been simplified, excess carved away carefully by trainer Abel Sanchez. There is nothing cute about Golovkin—not anymore. There is only careful, almost delicate footwork and pain.

Golovkin cuts off the ring, maintains the perfect distance and unleashes sledgehammer punches that appear deceptively casual. But when they land, men fall down.

Champions have vacated titles and even the middleweight class to avoid his looming presence. Potential Hall of Famers Sergio Martinez, Miguel Cotto and Saul "Canelo" Alvarez have been contemporaries and titlists. None have wanted a piece of the Kazakh buzzsaw with the dynamite fists.

"We don’t have to go through the list of all the full-fledged middleweights who have turned down fights, given up titles and negotiated until the 11th hour and then not sign the contract," Golovkin's promoter Tom Loeffler told the press earlier this week. "It's unbelievable how difficult it is to find someone to get in the ring with Gennady." 

On HBO's broadcast, former middleweight great Bernard Hopkins put it more succinctly.

"He's running out of bodies." 

Golovkin has become a constant on HBO, a comforting presence ready to ride to the rescue every few months just as the "boxing is dead" stories make their biannual appearances, a living antidote to the poison that consumes his sport.

This familiarity has made him a star—but it's also made us blase about the excellence right in front of our eyes. His performances have been so extraordinary that nothing short of a Mike Tyson-esque demolition can satisfy an increasingly spoiled fanbase.

Boxing's diminished place in the mainstream sport's culture has left many casual fans unimpressed with Golovkin's reign of destruction in the middleweight division. Few fighters, even top fighters and alphabet-soup champions, would draw a crowd on the street. But no one should mistake a lack of name recognition with a lack of skill.

Golovkin isn't extending his streak against a collection of tomato cans—he's just making the best fighters available look like nothing more than enhancement talent. He's so good, some have even speculated he takes unnecessary damage in fights to give potential foes courage. 

So far, it hasn't worked.

It borders on the cliche, but Ric Flair's famous maxim remains true: "To be the man, you gotta beat the man." But what happens when the man wants nothing to do with you? 

While we wait for a superfight with Alvarez that may never come, it's important to remember that boxing fans are witnessing history. Whether he fights Canelo or not, Golovkin is establishing himself as one of the great fighters of his era—one unknown victim at a time.

Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.