Gennady Golovkin's Sparring Profile: A Sparring Partner Reference List

This page is designed to be as complete as possible a reference list and guide to the sparring of major world Middleweight titlist Gennady Golovkin as can be found. Whatever claim of sparring, I will try to track it down and source it. It will be updated as I get more information to add. It is part of our main page list for finding sparring partner history, to be found here:

Who Were Their Sparring Partners? A Boxing Reference List For Research Purposes

1.Tyrell Hendrix:

Tyrell says: ''I'm gonna tell you the truth, man, that Golovkin dude, he's no hype. He punch so hard, man, he punch through the headgear, man."

"He has freakishly unreal power, man. But people don't know, I knocked him down in the first round when I came to sparring, and after that he beat me up every other day, it was nasty."

"I knocked him down in sparring, man, Abel Sanchez got the video, they might not want to show that, but I heard the HBO announcers saying he's never been down in sparring. I dropped him to the body, you know what I'm saying? But, he took it, he took it out on me the rest of the day."

"He don't do nothing real special, he just hits so hard you can't even implement your game plan because he hits so hard."

"He's a nice guy. He invited me out. I was up there and we sit down and ate but after in sparring he tried to kill me."

Source: EsNews

2. Lamar Russ:
Russ says he was in three camps for him and that he is a pound for pound top five fighter.
"He's an all-around fighter."
"He's actually improved my game."
Source: Boxing Socialist

Interview published on Oct 22, 2013

 

3. Latif Mundy

Source: Hustle Boss

4. Derrick Findley

Source: Hustle Boss

5. Julio Cesar Chavez Junior: 
Source: Ring 

Secondary source: Abel Sanchez taking questions from Hustle Boss:
Abel says Golovkin went easy and Golovkin isn't an "abusive fighter". He says Golovkin sparred three rounds with Peter Quillin on the same day as five rounds with Chavez Junior, at the Wild Card Gym. He mentions Freddie Roach is always accomadating when he brings in guys who need good sparring partners. Roach, of course, had worked with Chavez Junior and Quillin, despite both being campaigning middleweights. 



6. Saul "Canelo" Alvarez: Specifically mentioned, for Alvarez's match with Ryan Rhodes and Gennady's match with Kassim Ouma. These are both June 2011 matches.
Source: Ring
Source for Rhodes and Ouma camps: Boxing Scene

Via translation to English by another party, Alvarez is meant to have confirmed: "I've sparred with Golovkin many times." while in the lead-up to Alvarez's fight with Floyd Mayweather Junior.
Source: EsNews

Secondary Source: Max Kellerman in interview with Chris Young for Xfinity/Comcast

This exchange took place in the interview regarding Alvarez and Golovkin's sparring:

Kellerman: Canelo Alvarez will never get within a 100 miles of Gennady Golovkin.

Young: Why?

Kellerman: In September I asked Golovkin about Alvarez because people were asking about that fight and he basically said that when he sparred with Alvarez (in Big Bear, California) he had to take it easy because he didn’t want to hurt him.
 


7. Sergey Kovalev:

“Kovalev was afraid of Golovkin when he was in the ring with him. . .I couldn’t spar them too much because Kovalev showed Gennady too much respect in the ring."
"When he did spar Gennady, Sergey would fall apart and wouldn’t pose much of a challenge for Golovkin. It was either too much respect or too much fear.”

Source: Fight Saga

Kovalev says:
"He hits like a sledgehammer."
Source: English translation of a Kovalev interview from this site:  Kovalboxer.com

8. Peter Quillin:
"That never happened, that he ran me and Chavez out of the gym."
''We just did regular sparring. It ain't like he's like knocking me out, knocking all over the ring. That never happens to Kid Chocolate."


Source: EsNews

Abel Sanchez, Golovkin's trainer, says that Peter and Gennady sparred only one time, telling Hustle Boss in an interview in June of 2013. He said Golovkin sparred three rounds with Quillin and five rounds with Chavez Junior on that day. He said they try not to show each other too much, being in the same division but that they worked well together. He says this took place at Wild Card and also that he's sure either would fight the other but that the problem was Peter fighting for a different television channel.

Source: Hustle Boss


9. Alfredo Angulo:
Source: Ring 

10. Shane Mosley: Shane says: "He has great punching power. Very heavy-handed." and that he started working with him before Golovkin was a world champion, guesses 2009 or 2008. Shane also says "He's very strong, very disciplined and he works hard." He also mentions at this time that he stills spars with him at times or his son does.
Source: VIDEO HERE
Speaks about it here in an interview published in March of this year: Hustle Boss


11. Tavoris Cloud:
Source: Knockout Digest

12. Tony Harrison:
Source: Sports Illustrated

13. Ryan Coyne: For Golovkin's match with Gregorz Proksa. Coyne is known as both a Cruiserweight and Light Heavyweight prospect at this time.
Coyne says:

“I’ve sparred with heavyweights who can punch, including Mariusz Wach and Mike Perez, nobody has hit me as hard as Golovkin. His power is out of this world.”

Source: Ring

14.  David Imoesiri: For Golovkin's match with Gregorz Proksa.

David says: “It’s crazy. I sparred with Alexander Povetkin and he never hurt me like this guy."
Source: Ring 

15. Antonio Margarito:
Source: Doghouse Boxing

16. Farah Ennis: Ennis boxes as a Super Middleweight and Light Heavyweight. Farah says: "He's the strongest dude I ever sparred. And I been in there with heavyweights, cruiserweights."

Source: EsNews

17. Dhafir Smith: Smith boxes as a Super Middleweight, Light Heavyweight and even Cruiserweight.
Sourch: Doghouse Boxing

18. Paul Mendez: Mendez boxes as a Middleweight and Super Middleweight.
Source: EsNews

19. Ola Afolabi: Afolabi is a Cruiserweight title challenger who has been the distance with Marco Huck three times and is a sparring partner to Heavyweight Champion Wladimir Klitschko.
Source: EsNEWS

20. Carson Jones: Jones has been all over the weight classes from Welterweight to Light Heavyweight.
Source: Hustle Boss

21. Ryota Murata: Murata is thought to be a Middleweight prospect, with most of his fights taking place barely inside Super Middleweight early in his career yet.
Source: Asian Boxing

22. Julius Jackson: Julius, a Super Middleweight prospect, says: “Sparring with Gennady Golovkin is amazing. I've learned a lot of things about balance, strength and power punching. He's one of the hardest punchers right now in the sport of boxing and he focuses a lot on key exercises that I've begun to work into my routine.”
This is his second trip to spar with Golovkin, the article says, and this time it is for Golovkin's defense against Daniel Geale.
Source: St. Thomas Source

Jackson would come to Golovkin's aid once again to help him prepare for his fight against Marco Antonio Rubio.

The source article cites a quote to BaylorIC:

“The rumors are true, GENNADY GOLOVKIN is an animal. I’ve never been hit as hard from anybody else and I’ve sparred heavyweights,” Jackson said to Bayloric.

Source: Sports News 24


23. Shane Mosley Junior: This is assumed, as Mosley mentions only that his son, without naming names, spars with Golovkin at times.
Source: Hustle Boss

24. Fredrick Lawson: Leading up to Golovkin's bout with Marco Antonio Rubio and Lawson's bout with Ray Narh. 
Source: It was mentioned on ESPN2's broadcast of Ray Narh VS Fredrick Lawson and also Allsports, the Ghanian sports site.

25. Chris Hunt, interviewer for Men's Fitness, took time from his interview of Gennady Golovkin in the lead up to Golovkin's match with Marco Antonio Rubio to do some presumably very light sparring with him. Hunt said it was one of the coolest things he'd ever done and thanked Gennady for not killing him.

Source: Men's Fitness

26. George Groves: For Golovkin's match with Daniel Geale.

George says: 
“He’s a compact fighter, yeah. He packs a punch."

"He definitely hit me with a few shots, you know, and I hit him back with a few shots.'

"Great, absolutely priceless bit of sparring. . .Perfect timing."

"If there was any doubts about, you know, myself, my ability, my, you know, temperament, my mind, whatever, to go back in and spar with another world champion, one of the best pound for pound in the world right now, who was a week away from fight fitness, a week away from his fight, you know, and spar well- perfect.”

''Big Bear's a fantastic place to be."

Source: iFL TV

27. Enrique Ornelas: 

 "Ornelas gave his all and got in his share of shots but it was obvious who the more accomplished fighter was."

~Observer, Anson Wainwright, who mentions just before their first of several sparring sessions, Abel Sanchez showed Ornelas footage of Golovkin VS Bute in the amateurs, because Ornelas had just come back from sparring Bute in Canada to spar Golovkin in Big Bear, California, USA. 

It was noted as the Fall of 2011, or some time before Ornelas' match with Beibut Shumenov (2012) and Golovkin's match against Lajuan Simon.(2011).
Source: Max Boxing


28. Roberto Garcia:
Source: Mentioned during the Friday Night Fights broadcast featuring Garcia VS Norberto Gonzalez, in the preceding match of Kamil Laszczyk VS Daniel Diaz, by commentator Bernardo Osuna

29. Marcos Rene Maidana: Oddly, in a 2014 interview with EsNews, through a translator, it was mentioned that Maidana thinks he remembered sparring Golovkin in Germany and feeling his power.
Source: EsNews


30. Zapir Rasulov: For Golovkin's match with Kassim Ouma in June of 2011.
Source: Boxing Scene

31. Sullivan Barrera: Only implied in the source and they have been pictured working together, but it is unclear if they were real spars. It was mentioned in October interview, while he was preparing to fight Rowland Bryant and probably during Golovkin's training camp for Marco Antonio Rubio.
Source: Boxing News 24

Extra camp notes:

1. For his match with Daniel Geale, Geale trained with Jake Carr playing the part of Golovkin.
Source: The Australian

2. For his match with Gregorz Proksa, Doug Fischer for Ring, says that all of his sparring rounds were four minutes a piece.
Source: RingTV

3. Marco Antonio Rubio used Egidijus Kavaliauskas for his match with Golovkin.
Source: EsNews



As always, for any corrections you think you have, please post a source with your comment, unless it's something like a simple typo. If you like what we do, please, bookmark, share, etc. The more traffic we get, the more likely we are to keep going, at this stage. This page will be filled in with quotes and notes I find interesting, whether informative, odd or funny or any other form of interest. Thanks for checking in.


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