Gennady Golovkin and the 5 Most Feared and Ducked Fighters in Boxing History

There are many ways for a fighter to be intimidating. For some, it's just a matter of being—they exist, and fear follows in their wake as a matter of course. These men, hulking behemoths like a prime George Foreman and a pre-Robin Givens Mike Tyson, create a visceral reaction in their fellow men, even ostensibly brave fighters.

They are potentially bad news—and can't hide it.

For others, more is required. Think Aaron Pryor's dead-eyed stare that earned him the nickname "The Hawk." Think Ricardo Mayorga's over-the-top-antics. These men are just as scary, but they need a little something to push them over the edge—part art and part artifice.

Finally, and perhaps worst of all, are men like Gennady Golovkin, the Kazakh knockout artist who has taken the middleweight division by storm and fights Marco Antonio Rubio on HBO Saturday night. There's nothing inherently intimidating about Golovkin. In fact, he has the smile of a small child and the sweaters to match. 

But that easy air belies a killer inside. Golovkin isn't scary because of who he is or what he looks like. No, what breeds fear are his actions, his perfect 30-0 record and especially his 27 knockouts. It's the effortless way he achieves those knockouts—not with a fury of angry motion but with standard, efficient, even ordinary-looking punches. 

"I have this power because I'm training very hard," Golovkin told Bleacher Report earlier this year. "Every day. I'm so thankful to my trainers who make me feel so powerful."

This uncommon power and effectiveness have led his peers at the top of the middleweight division to stay very, very far away. Sergio Martinez, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Felix Sturm wanted no part of Golovkin. Time will tell if current standard bearer Miguel Cotto feels the same way.

"It’s easier to make fights for Wladimir Klitschko than it is for Golovkin," K2 managing director and Golovkin promoter Tom Loeffler told The Ring's Doug Fischer. "Golovkin’s got a major title and dates on HBO, which offers good money, but there’s still nothing but excuses from potential opponents."

For the most part, fights that make sense also make dollars. That means those fights may end up happening—in time. Of course, we all know that isn't always the case. If it were, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao would have stepped into the ring at the MGM Grand long ago. 

Golovkin, unfortunately, may be the exception. He could be the rare fighter who doesn't get an opportunity until late in his career—if he gets it at all. There have been others like him: fighters who cause the world's bravest athletes sleepless nights. 

What follows are five of the most feared and egregiously ducked fighters in boxing history. Have some other names in mind? Feel free to make your case in the comments.

Peter Jackson

Legendary tough guy John L. Sullivan, bare-knuckle champion, bon vivant and the life of any party, was famous for proclaiming his willingness to whip "any man born of woman."

But those bold words came with a caveat—the victim would have to be white. Sullivan drew a color line in the sand, one he would not cross. Perhaps that was out of misguided principle to a cause on the wrong side of history.

More likely?

Sullivan knew Peter Jackson was standing on the other side of that color line.

The handsome Jackson, born in the Virgin Islands and coming of age as a fighter in Australia, was more than a fluid, strong and cat-quick boxer. According to boxing historian Bert Sugar, he was also an innovator:

"

A thoroughbred in his movements compared to the workhorse movements of the top pugilists of his day, Jackson replaced the almost mechanical act of sticking out the left and then shooting over the right and instead introduced his own invention: a devastating one-two, changing the face of boxing.

"

The result was just four losses in 85 career bouts, including a legendary 61-round "no-contest" with "Gentleman" Jim Corbett in 1891. The next year Corbett would dethrone Sullivan, ushering in a new era in boxing, a modern game that by rights should have included Jackson. 

Instead, with the championship in hand, Corbett decided he too would stay on his side of the color line. After all, he knew firsthand exactly how dangerous Jackson truly was.

Jackson, sadly, never fought for the world championship, losing himself to depression, drink and an eventual early demise from consumption. He was just 40 years old.

Sam Langford

Jackson was hardly alone in the early days of boxing's metamorphosis into a professional sport. The color line was simply a matter of fact for black boxers in the early 1900s.

Take, for example, poor Sam Langford.

Known as the "Boston Tar Baby," he was the most fearsome man of his age—with no world championship to show for it. Standing just 5'6", Langford was a natural welterweight. But that never stopped him from facing some of the best heavyweights of his day. They were, however, almost exclusively fellow black fighters.

According to Gilbert Odd's Encyclopedia of Boxing he fought Joe Jeanette 14 times,  Sam McVey 15 times and Harry Wills a whopping 23 times. This too was normal for the era. Fearing the potential for widespread violence, Langford rarely ventured into the ring against a Caucasian foe. Instead he competed on what black performers called "the chitlin' circuit."

But it was not just his white peers who shunned him; more fortunate black fighters did as well. When Jack Johnson miraculously found himself in the ring with the world champion, he walked away with the belt. That didn't mean he was about to share that good fortune with his fellow black fighter.

Author Charles Samuels relates the following conversation between the two men at Johnson's training camp for a fight with "Great White Hope" Jim Jeffries:

"

'Why don't you fight me champ?'

'Go 'way man,' Johnson would say. 'I can't get nothin' fightin' you.'

'You can get a damn good licking,' Langford invariably replied.

"

Sadly, Langford never got to prove himself as the best in the world. Instead, the following story will have to suffice to establish his excellence.

When asked by British promoters why he never negotiated with them about who would officiate his bouts, which was common practice for Americans at the time, Langford answered calmly that he brought his own referees with him. According to legend the Brits were aghast, per Boxing Biographies:

"

'Why you must be mistaken Mr. Langford, you can't do that.' And there was a storm of protest. Sam flashed a grin, raised his fist in the air and shook it and laughed.

'Here's my referee gentlemen, a referee that can give the right decision every time.' 

"

Harry Wills

Although the color line was still drawn firmly and in what seemed to be permanent ink, Harry Wills came close to crossing over to glory against the great Jack Dempsey. A contract was signed in 1922, and tickets were printed in 1924, set to sell at a whopping $27.50 ringside.

Instead, in the most American of all endings, the men ended up in court, not in the ring.

Wills was the anti-Jack Johnson, the African American who did everything "the right way," according to Brian Bunk in The Journal of Sport History: 

"

Newspapers highlighted Wills’s moral character in contrast to Johnson’s questionable reputation. Articles, editorials, and cartoons presented Wills as a representative of all Americans regardless of race and appealed to notions of sportsmanship based on equal opportunity in support of the fighter’s efforts to gain a chance at the title.

"

While Wills likely set the stage for Joe Louis, later the longtime champion of the world, he never got the opportunity himself. The public, it seemed, was ready. Wills won a national poll and was chosen by boxing fans as the best potential opponent for the champion. Dempsey, by most accounts, was game.

The fight, however, was the victim of politics in New York. Promoter Tex Rickard felt dueling politicians were sending mixed signals and "making me the goat." Commissioner William Muldoon, former trainer to John L. Sullivan, didn't want the fight in New York.

When a new venue couldn't be located, the men ended up in court. Dempsey turned up in the ring as well—but against Gene Tunney, who took the title from the brawler in a classic bout.

For Wills, it had been a last-ditch effort. Though he fought on for several more years, he was already 37 by the time Tunney took the title. He never fought Dempsey, a regret he carried with him to the grave.

Archie Moore

The "Mongoose" Archie Moore is a beloved figure in boxing, widely recognized as one of the sport's all-time greats. His exploits are legendary' his 185 wins are a staggering figure, even in an era when many fought monthly, or even more often, just to make ends meet.

But that wasn't always the case.

Moore was 39 years old before he ever got a shot at Joey Maxim's championship in 1952. He was "just another black kid spilling his blood to make a few bucks," as he would later write, fighting just to survive:

"

I fought many years longer than I should have had to before I got a shot at the title. I felt like a guy trying to climb a glass mountain. I would climb two steps up and then slide four steps back. I scratched and clawed my way up that glass mountain until I could almost touch the peak with my outstretched fingertips. It was like a bad dream where you’re trying to reach something but never can.

"

Moore went through trainers and managers at a staggering rate. To get ahead in the boxing of that era, a black fighter had to work with the power structure that included important mafia figures, taking dives when needed, following instructions and hoping for the best.

Moore didn't want to play that game.

Racism, too, played its part. "We don't use coal," was how a New York matchmaker of the time described his policy toward black fighters. New York was the boxing capital of the world in those early years of television dominance, leaving many of the sport's best fighters on the outside looking in.

Eventually, to secure his shot, Moore agreed to retain Maxim's manager "Doc" Kearns as his own adviser in the event he won the bout. He also guaranteed the champion a $100,000 pay day while accepting just $800.

That was the cost of doing business in boxing.

Bob Foster

Five years into his career, Bob Foster, who was likely the best light heavyweight in the world, was working at a munitions plant, assembling explosives. He had given up on boxing. The top 175-pounders wanted nothing to do with him. The top heavyweights, in turn, were too big for him to handle. He was in limbo. He saw no way out. 

What happened next was fascinating.

"I wasn’t doing too good. I had a black manager, Billy Edwards, who didn’t know anybody, and I wasn’t getting any good fights," Foster told Austin Killeen in an amazing interview on IBROResearch.com. "I was sitting in my apartment when there was a knock on the door. When I answered it, a woman asked me if I was Bob Foster and handed me an envelope."

Inside was $500 from reputed mobster Joe Nesline who, together with a man named Morris "Mushky" Salow—whom the New York Athletic Commission banned as a "habitual gambler"—wanted to manage his career. More money followed, as did a new four-door Cadillac—and a warning.

"Then, he told me that if the FBI or anyone else asks you if you know me, just say you’re a friend and that’s all you know about me," Foster said. "So, this is how I got a shot at the title."

Even with the institutional support, a title shot was hard to come by. Like Jose Torres before him, champion Dick Tiger didn't have any interest in fighting a man like Foster. That meant two more years as the uncrowned top contender, waiting for a shot.

"He ducked me, and he would have continued to duck me if I didnʼt put up $100,000," Foster told Saddo Boxing. "I was the No. 1 contender for three years, but Tiger was a Garden fighter. So it was hard for me to get a shot. He wouldnʼt fight me until I put up $100,000 to get a title shot."

Much like Archie Moore before him, Foster would make almost nothing in the first title fight of his career on May 24, 1968. Unfortunately for Tiger, that pile of cash did little to soften the blow when a hard Foster left hook sent him sprawling to the mat. He was knocked out for the first time in a career that had spanned 77 fights.

Foster would go on to solidify a Hall of Fame resume, winning 14 title defenses over the next four years. But his story proves that, in boxing at least, even the very best need a little boost to make it to the top.