Ryan Garcia is facing a lot of criticism on social media for his negative stance on Gennadiy Golovkin not being deserving of the Boxing Hall of Fame.
Ryan Garcia Blasts GGG: “Never Beat Anybody Great”
Garcia says the former IBF, WBA, and WBC middleweight champion Golovkin (42-2-1, 37 KOs) didn’t beat any great fighters during his 16-year professional career to make him worthy of being voted into the Hall of Fame.
Ryan believes that a fighter needs to display a level of “greatness’ to be in the Hall, and it’s not there with GGG. He doesn’t give Golovkin credit for his controversial draw against Canelo Alvarez in 2017 or his questionable defeat in their rematch in 2018. Those are fights that many people believed Gennadiy won.
“For one, GGG never had any real great victories. Who did he beat?” said Ryan Garcia to the InsideTheRingShow, about Golovkin not deserving to be in the Boxing Hall of Fame. “The one thing I can give him is that he was one of the superstars in boxing for a long time.
Was GGG a Victim of His Era?
Golovkin didn’t have many opportunities to fight great fighters during his career because the division was depleted by the time he arrived. There was Canelo and no one else. GGG would have had to move up to 168 to fight the likes of Andre Ward, Carl Froch, and Mikkel Kessler if he wanted to face bigger names.
During Golovkin’s era, fewer fighters were jumping between weight classes as there is now. There was less incentive for fighters to jump up one to three weight classes because Turki Alalshikh wasn’t around to offer them $50 million, as is the case now.
Ryan Clarifies His Hall of Fame Criteria
I made it clear to everyone, it’s called HALL OF FAME for a reason you guys don’t really value that title that much then. I don’t really have any emotions toward who’s in and who’s not, but there a level of greatness I expect when I think of hall of fame
— RYAN GARCIA (@RyanGarcia) October 7, 2025