Hopkins tears into Golovkin for criticizing Canelo

By Boxing News - 08/07/2016 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: Bernard Hopkins of Golden Boy Promotions thinks IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) is a hypocrite for criticizing Golden Boy fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in the past for him fighting Amir Khan in their fight last May on HBO pay-per-view.

Golovkin thought it wasn’t a good fight for boxing due to Canelo fighting a much smaller fighter than himself in Khan, who had already shown that he had problems taking shots from lightweights, light welterweights and welterweights. Hopkins thinks Golovkin is a hypocrite because he’s now fighting welterweight Kell Brook (36-0, 25 KOs) on September 10 next month. Hopkins sees the Golovkin vs. Brook fight as the same thing as Canelo vs. Khan.

“I think it’s a good matchup for boxing, because you got to give Brook the credit for stepping up to the plate. That was unfair criticism,” said Hopkins to fighthyp.com about Golovkin’s criticism in the past of Canelo for fighting welterweight Amir Khan. “He’s calling the kettle black. Triple G now is doing the same thing that he accused Canelo of doing, Time will tell all frauds in boxing,” said Hopkins.

Technically, Golovkin is doing the same thing that Canelo did in fighting a welterweight. However, it’s a bit different with Golovkin. He and his promoter Tom Loeffler didn’t go hunting for a welterweight like Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya did. Brook was a replacement for middleweight Chris Eubank Jr., who Golovkin’s promoter Loeffler was in negotiations with for a fight in September. The fight that was supposed to happen was the Golovkin vs. Eubank Jr. fight, not the Golovkin-Brook fight. When Eubank Jr. didn’t sign the contract to fight GGG, Eubank Jr’s promoter Eddie Hearn offered Brook as a replacement for Eubank Jr. With the money being the same for Golovkin, he would have been crazy not to take the fight with Brook.

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The other differences between Canelo’s fight with Khan and Golovkin’s with Brook is the fact that Brook is undefeated, doesn’t have a chin problem like Khan, and is huge for the welterweight class. Brook is really a big junior middleweight that has been melting own to fight welterweights. Brook weighs more than Golovkin, which means that he could fight at middleweight easily if he wanted to. What makes Golovkin so special is his huge punching power. While he weighs less than Brook, he’s harder puncher naturally. Golovkin could do what Brook does if he wanted to gain an advantage in his fights by melting down to 154 or 147 so that he could beat up on lighter guys than himself. But he doesn’t want to do that and have to deal with the hassle of draining down each time he makes weight. Brook doesn’t mind losing a ton of water weight each time he fights at welterweight.

Hopkins is no stranger to fighting guys lighter than himself. He fought Oscar De La Hoya and Fellix Trinidad in his career while he was in the middleweight division. De La Hoya started his pro career as a lightweight and he spent his best years at welterweight. Trinidad’s best years of his career were also at welterweight.

The only reason Golovkin criticized Canelo for fighting Khan was because he wasn’t fighting him when he was Canelo’s No1 mandatory challenger for his WBC middleweight belt. Canelo instead fought welterweight Amir Khan. That was supposed to be Canelo’s interim fight before fighting Golovkin. Never the less, Canelo chose to vacate his World Boxing Council title shortly after knocking out Khan in the 6th round in their catch-weight fight at 155 pounds. Khan was brought up to the middleweight division in what many boxing fans saw as the sacrificial lamb to be knocked out by Canelo. Sure enough, Canelo knocked Khan out in a really scary KO.

It’s too bad Hopkins isn’t pushing Canelo to take the fight with Golovkin, because it’s a fight that the boxing world wants to see. Canelo’s promoter De La Hoya insists that he’s a 154lb fighter. Canelo is now going to be melting down to 154lbs for his next fight against WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith on September 17 at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The fight will be televised on HBO pay-per-view.

It’s going to be interesting to see if Canelo can even make the 154lb weight, because he hasn’t fought at junior middleweight for three years since 2013. Khan recently said that Canelo rehydrated to 187lbs for their fight last May after making weight at 155. If this is true, then Canelo gained back 32 pounds after rehydrating. That’s an incredible amount of weight. If Canelo is putting that much weight back on after he rehydrates, then you’ve got to hope that he doesn’t hurt himself one of these days by taking too much weight, because it’s potentially a dangerous thing to dehydrate huge amounts of water weight.

If Canelo would just take the fight with Golovkin, it would help the sport of boxing due to the fight being so huge. Right now, it looks funny that a fighter as heavy as Canelo is losing weight to fight at junior middleweight against a lighter guy who isn’t even the best fighter in the 154lb division. If Canelo wanted to fight a lighter guy from the junior middleweight division, he should have fought the likes of Jermall Charlo or Demetrius Andrade. Those guys at least are rated highly and seen as two of the most talented fighters in the division. Liam Smith isn’t seen as the best at 154 or even the second best.