By Dan Ambrose: Floyd Mayweater Jr. believes that Mexican superstar Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs) will EASILY beat IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady” GGG” Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) when the two of them eventually meet up in 2017 or at some point in the future.
Mayweather feels that Golovkin is nothing special, and only beats fighters that are stationary. Indeed, Mayweather feels that Canelo will not only give Golovkin his first defeat, but he’ll also knock him out in the process and make it look easy. It’s unclear what Mayweather’s thoughts were on Canelo’s fights against Erislandy Lara and Liam Smith.
Those were not easy fights for him. Canelo looked tired in both of them, and struggled. In Canelo’s last fight against Liam Smith on September 17, he frequently needed rest breaks against the ropes and he took punishment from Smith. You can argue that in a fight against Golovkin, which would be fought at a far faster pace, Canelo would turn red in the face and exhaust himself quickly. Canelo appears to be incapable of fighting at a super-fast pace. Smith was pushing the fight to Canelo, but he wasn’t throwing punches. He mostly just followed Canelo around and picking spots to let his hands go. It was the wrong approach to beat Canelo, because it allowed him too many chances for rest breaks. Smith talking about wanting to give Canelo no chances to get a breather before the fight, but he proved to be incapable of fighting like that when it came to reality. Perhaps Smith didn’t have the stamina to fight at a fast pace himself, so he only rarely let his hands go. Golovkin would be a different story, because he would not only push a fast pace, but he would also throw nonstop punches, which Smith was incapable of doing.
Mayweather said this to Fighthype.com:
“Canelo beats Triple G easy,” said Mayweather. “Yeah, he beats him. He stops him. It don’t go the distance.Well, I have to tell Canelo this. Live your life. Do what makes you happy, Canelo. Me as a fighter, Floyd Mayweather. For years they called me a coward. They said I was scared of Manny Pacquiao. Pacquiao is a Hall of Famer, a hell of a champion. They said I was a coward. They said I was scared. They said so many negative things about me. All they do is inspire me to work harder, to keep pushing myself. There’s no limit to how far Canelo can go. I mean, he has a crazy fan base. Business, I understand business. That’s why for his last fight [against Liam Smith], they had to take that fight to Dallas, because they know that fight wasn’t going to do well in Las Vegas. But I understand the business part,” said Mayweather.
You can argue that the only reason why Mayweather feels that Canelo can beat Golovkin is because it would make him look better if that were to happen. Since Mayweather’s best win of his career was against a young Canelo rather than a faded 36-year-old Manny Pacquiao, it makes Mayweather look better if Canelo can beat Golovkin. If Canelo beats Golovkin, it increases Mayweather’s stature in the boxing world and helps cement his ‘all-time great’ credentials. However, if Golovkin wipes the deck with Canelo and destroys him by knocking him out, then it makes Mayweather’s accomplishment pale in comparison.
Mayweather had a weight handicap for the Canelo fight in choosing to drain him down to 152 rather than choosing to fight him at 154 or whatever weight was the most comfortable for him. As big as Canelo is, 160lbs would have probably been his best weight for the Mayweather fight, even back in 2013 when they fought. Mayweather DID NOT fight Canelo at his best weight. He got an advantage over Canelo by fighting him at 152. You could see how weak Canelo was in draining down to 152 at the weigh-in. Canelo needed a chair to sit in because he appeared very weak from taking all the weight off. It wasn’t the best Canelo that Mayweather fought. It was a drained Canelo.
As far as how Mayweather fought Canelo on the night, he did it by boxing him for him 12 rounds, and using a lot of movement and jabbing. Honestly, the Mayweather-Canelo fight was very boring to watch, as it lacked action. If you like watching 12 rounds of jabbing, single pot shots, and moving, then this was the fight for you. It was not an exciting fight by means. Mayweather fought a safety first fight against Canelo, and took zero chances to make it an exciting match.
In contrast, when Golovkin eventually faces Canelo, you can bet that he’s going to make it a much different fight than the one we saw with Mayweather vs. Canelo. It’ll likely be a much more fan friendly fight with Golovkin pushing the fight and forcing Canelo to work every second of the match by bombarding him with power shots to the head and body. I think it’s very likely that Canelo will turn red in the face from the fast pace of the fight, and likely get stopped at some point. It might even be an easy stoppage, because Canelo won’t be able to run like Golovkin’s last opponent Kell Brook. A knockout win for Golovkin over Canelo will take a lot of the air out of Mayweather’s previous win over the red-haired star, because Golovkin will do it in a much more courageous manner.
Golovkin won’t play it safe like Mayweather did, and he won’t run from Canelo in the last four rounds. Mayweather ran from Canelo from the 9th round on after getting nailed by a hard right hand to the head. Before that, Mayweather was mostly just jabbing and throwing rare pot shots. It was really boring to watch, because Mayweather was taking no chances whatsoever to make it an exciting fight.
The Mayweather vs. Canelo fight was even more boring than the Mayweather vs. Andre Berto fight in my opinion, because there was no drama at all. Canelo looked weak, slow, inexperienced due to his youth, and clueless from start to finish. It wasn’t a fair fight. Canelo was too young at the time to be fighting Mayweather, and he didn’t have the experience. Canelo still doesn’t have the experience, because his promoters at Golden Boy have matched him weakly for most of his career. Instead of fighting the really good opponents, we’ve seen Canelo being matched against fighters like Liam Smith, James Kirkland, Amir Khan and Alfredo Angulo.
