UndercarDVR: HBO Championship Boxing: Golovkin vs. Wade

Welcome to another installment of UndercarDVR, where we review what you need to see from this week in combat sports. We go fight by fight to see whether it needs to be watched, deleted, or put in fast forward.

HBO Championship Boxing brought us the familiar Gennady Golovkin/Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez double-bill as they faced challengers Dominic Wade and McWilliams Arroyo, respectively. With predictable results, were the champions able to put on performances of note?

Get your remotes ready.

Gennady Golovkin defeated Dominic Wade by second-round TKO in a middleweight bout to retain the WBA, IBF, IBO and interim WBC World Middleweight titles.

• Max Kellerman compared Golovkin to Mike Tyson after the fight last night and I was incredulous at first. After hearing the crowd roar in the background of GGG’s post-fight interview where he coolly called out Amir Khan or “Canelo” Alvarez, I started to get it. Golovkin is a force in the ring and promoters, despite their faults in not being able to secure him big fights, have marketed Golovkin extremely well. Aside from all of the theatrics surrounding the fight, Golovkin is a machine in the ring as he stalks opponents to the ropes and blasts them. GGG even walks into some punches with a smile to get you where he wants you. Wade was just another warm body here and all we can hope for is Golovkin to finally get the fights he has earned. It won’t be as easy for him to walk through a punch from Canelo to get him where he needs to be and those little intricacies are what we need to see tested. The star is ready to be born and the crowd at The Forum proved that after another brutal display.
• Golovkin is a special talent and his fights are predictable, but predictably violent. This was no different and you don’t even have to sit through two full rounds to see the end. Keep an eye on what Golovkin does here and match it up with top fighters you know. Verdict: Watch.

Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez defeated McWilliams Arroyo by unanimous decision in a flyweight bout to retain the WBC, Lineal & The Ring Flyweight titles.

• “Chocolatito” has a good thing going as the opener for GGG and he didn’t disappoint here, despite not being able to get the finish and showing a bit of vulnerability at some points. Still, Chocolatito brings a furious pace that you can count on for the majority of the fight and Arroyo really acquitted himself well here, taking advantage of any time Chocolatito would slow down to feel him out. There’s nothing really on the horizon for Chocolatito aside from divisional dominance unless he decides on drastic weight changes for whatever lighter-weight superfights might be out there, but that divisional dominance is plenty to keep even the most basic boxing enthusiast focused on him.
• This was surprisingly competitive in a way. Not necessarily competitive by the dictionary definition, but in comparison to past victims of Chocolatito, Arroyo looked great. Not that they fazed the champion, but Arroyo was able to get some shots in as Chocolatito would flurry inside. Chocolatito is the rare combination between elite talent and action fighter that succeeds and is worth viewing 99.9% of the time. Verdict: Watch.