Golovkin loses to Stevens in Breakthrough HBO Fighter

With the end of the year the HBO Insiders decided to summarize the most memorable boxers and events by voting for the year-end pick in several categories. To the disappointment of Gennady Golovkin’s fans, the Kazakshtani boxer lost to Canadian Adonis Stevenson in the Breakthrough HBO Fighter category, reports Tengrinews reports citing Vesti.kz. HBO experts commented on their choices, giving evaluations to the most memorable boxers of this year. Kieran Mulvaney, an HBO commentator, said that it was “tempting to nominate Gennady Golovkin”. Mulvaney noted that Golovkin “only made his HBO debut last year and is now widely regarded as being, at worst, on the fringe of many pound-for-pound lists”. “But I'm going with Stevenson, who exploded onto HBO with a first-round obliteration of Chad Dawson (followed by a 5-mile sprint around the ring) and hasn't looked back. Honorable mentions to Sergey Kovalev and Ruslan Provodnikov,” concluded Kieran Mulvaney. Four out six HBO experts voted for the Canadian boxer, who certainly had a spectacular year. Nat Gottlieb disagreed with his counterparts and voted for Golovkin wholeheartedly. “I give it to Golovkin over Stevenson because people already knew about Stevenson coming into this year. Golovkin was largely unknown stateside until this year when he exploded onto the boxing scene by knocking out all four of his opponents in breathtaking fashion. The future is limitless with this guy. The problem is finding opponents for him,” said Gottlieb. Eric Raskin of HBO voted for Ruslan Provodnikov as the Breakthrough HBO Fighter. The Russian welterweight boxer Provodnikov had only 2 fights this year losing to Timothy Bradley back in March. Although Stevenson won the Breakthrough HBO Fighter this year, GGG (win 28/KO 25) still has a solid chance to impress the HBO Insiders and the fans with his next fight against Osunamu Adama (win 22/KO 16) from Ghana in Monte Carlo on February 1, 2014.