20 little-known facts about Gennady Golovkin

14. Golovkin was forced to go the distance for the first time as a pro against Mehdi Bouadla

Gennady Golovkin is a fighter of both myth and substance, and his 23-fight knockout streak is the perfect representation of these two seemingly contradictory facets. During that stretch, Golovkin produced frightening displays of surgical power that sent potential opponents cowering; meanwhile, the myth of his destructive brilliance grew to the point of a minor backlash, where the only way to resist Golovkin’s offensive perfection was to downgrade his opposition.

Golovkin, contrary to popular belief, is human in the boxing sense and does offers glimpses of fallibility. Even if you fall in the skeptical camp when it comes to Golovkin’s foes, he has almost exclusively dominated and bludgeoned every notable fighter he’s faced. However, the first boxer to extend Golovkin the distance was France’s Mehdi Bouadla, who was 11-1 at the time he fought the powerful Kazakh. Bouadla dropped a unanimous decision to Golovkin via scores of 78-74 (twice) and 79-75.

Snagging a couple of rounds from Golovkin is impressive enough, even if Triple G only had eight pro fights on his ledger at the time. And unlike most early scalps on a champion’s resume, Bouadla hardly turned out to be a scrub; in fact, his record currently stands at 31-6 with 11 knockouts, although it’s clear that his career at the elite level is over. Bouadla has only fought twice since 2014, with his last significant contest resulting in a TKO 3 loss to Dmitrii Chudinov for the “interim” WBA super middleweight title.

Bouadla also suffered stoppage setbacks against Mikkel Kessler and Arthur Abraham in 2012 in a WBO title challenge. Interestingly, Bouadla’s six losses can be divided into two distinct phases: the first three, which were by decision and occurred during the early phase of his career, and the final trio, which were all inside the distance and came in title challenges. It’s somewhat ironic that Golovkin fits into the former category given his propensity for knockouts and current pound-for-pound standing. But then again, even great fighters experience a learning curve.