By Allan Fox: Oscar De Hoya says he wants to see a knockout for his fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez over Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in their fight on September 16. De La Hoya says a win for the 26-year-old Canelo will make him the No.1 pound-for-pound fighter in boxing, and he’s probably right about that. The current No.1 pound for pound fighter Andre Ward earned the No.1 spot off of a highly controversial decision win over Sergey Kovalev last November.
Ward fought did a lot of wrestling in that fight, and it was one that many boxing fans thought should have been given to Kovalev. If Canelo can beat Golovkin, he deserves the top spot in the pound for pound ratings unless the outcome is open for debate.
“I’m looking for a knockout. I want the knockout,” said De La Hoya to ESPN Deportes. “We still do not see the best of Canelo.”
I don’t think it’s possible for Canelo, 26, to knockout Golovkin. I believe that Golovkin has a much better chance of getting a knockout in this fight than Canelo. The reason for that is because Golovkin has a VERY good chin, and he’s been in with bigger punchers than Canelo in the past and he’s never been hurt.
Canelo clearly doesn’t hit as hard as David Lemieux or Curtis Stevens. Golovkin took their best shots without getting hurt. If Canelo had a better engine in terms of his stamina, I would give him a better chance of getting a knockout. Canelo isn’t able to throw sustained combinations without tiring quickly and I mean very quickly and needing to take a rest break. Canelo was built for only short bursts of energy. After that, he needs to take breathers.
One of these days, Canelo is going to have problems against a fighter that takes advantage of his stamina problems by forcing him to deal with nonstop punches without letting him take a breather. It’s surprising that no one has taken advantage of Canelo’s inability to fight hard for a full three minutes as of yet. I don’t know if Golovkin is that type of fighter to do that though. Golovkin fights at a slow pace, which should give Canelo an advantage in resting a lot.
Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez needs to study Canelo’s flaws so that he can take advantage of his stamina issues. I don’t think Sanchez will. He didn’t do a great job of guiding Golovkin through his last fight against Danny Jacobs. That could have been an easy fight for Golovkin if Sanchez had instructed for Triple G to go after Jacobs in an all-out fashion like Dmitri Pirog did in 2010, but instead he had Golovkin boxing Jacobs. It was a poor plan and it made the fight a lot closer than it should have been for Golovkin.
“He has to be in the top three, so I see him. And winning Golovkin, no doubt, is going to be number one,” said De La Hoya about Canelo’s rankings in the pound for pound list going up if he beats Triple G on September 16. ”This is the Canelo era, it is the time of Canelo. And, in addition, he is just beginning his career, because he is still very young is only 26 years old.”
De La Hoya has built Canelo into a popular fighter with his Mexican fan base, but I don’t think he’s as good as his resume would suggest. Canelo hasn’t fought a lot of the good fighters. That much is obvious. Canelo looks good beating up on fighters like Amir Khan, James Kirkland, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Liam Smith and Alfredo Angulo. Those aren’t the best fighters. The thing is the casual boxing fans don’t realize that Canelo hasn’t been facing the best. He’s been fighting guys that many of the top contenders at 154 and 160 would easily beat.
I think guys like Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade, Jermell Charlo and Danny Jacobs would beat everyone that Canelo has beaten in his career without any problems. I would pick Jermall Charlo and Jacobs to beat Mayweather. These are talented fighters with a lot of size, speed and power. Canelo is a pretty good fighter, but I don’t think he’s shown that he should be rated above Jacobs, the Charlos and Golovkin.
It’s not fair to those fine fighters for De La Hoya to call this the “Canelo era.” De La Hoya can only call it Canelo’s era until he’s shown that he can beat Golovkin, Jacobs, and the Charlos. Just from what I saw of Canelo against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. last weekend, he would have a very tough time against all of those fighters. If De La Hoya doesn’t go back to matching Canelo against guys that are non-threatening to him like he’s been mostly doing since he started promoting him, Canelo’ career could implode if he truly faces the best like he’s been talking about.
Canelo has spoken about how he fights the best in the past, but that’s not really been the case. He’s fought the best on 2 occasions in his career against Mayweather and Erislandy Lara, and the results were disastrous with Canelo having problems and losing. He didn’t lose to Lara, but he should have. The rest of the fighters that Canelo has fought have NOT been the best. I’m sorry to break this to the boxing fans. Canelo doesn’t fight the best. He fights guys like Chavez Jr., Kirkland, Liam Smith and Miguel Cotto. Those are not the best.
“There will always be critics, that is logical and necessary,” said De La Hoya about Canelo and his many critics in the boxing world. “But I’ve always told Canelo, look at Saul, for every critic you have, you have a million followers who are supporting you.”
The reason why Canelo has so many critics isn’t just because the way he looks in his fights, which isn’t always great. It’s because he’s not been fighting the good fighters. De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions has moved Canelo around like a chess piece, putting him with guys that are flawed like Liam Smith, Amir Khan and Chavez Jr., while seemingly steering him around the dangerous fighters like Jermall Charlo, Golovkin and Jacobs.
De La Hoya‘s argument in the past about Canelo not being a middleweight didn’t explain why he wasn’t being matched against the Charlo brothers, Demetrius Andrade, Julian “J-Rock” Williams, Erickson Lubin and Jarrett Hurd at junior middleweight. That’s the division Canelo was fighting at. Why wasn’t De La Hoya matching Canelo against those fighters? It’s one thing for De La Hoya to say that Canelo wasn’t ready to fight Golovkin at middleweight, but it’s another thing to not match Canelo against the top 154 pound fighters from my aforementioned list.
We didn’t see Canelo matched against those quality fighters. We saw Canelo put in with these guys: Liam Smith, James Kirkland, Amir Khan, Alfredo Angulo, Erislandy Lara, and Miguel Cotto. Lara was a good fighter, but he’d been exposed by Angulo in getting knocked down by him with body shots. Lara isn’t as solid as the Charlos in my opinion.
It won’t be good for De La Hoya and Golden Boy promotions if Canelo is knocked out by Golovkin. They’ve got to hope that if Canelo does lose the fight, he loses by a hotly contested decision that will enable them to save face with the boxing public. Hopefully, De La Hoya, Canelo and Golden Boy don’t muddy the water afterwards by saying that they were robbed of a decision win. That would look bad. They need to give credit to Golovkin if he wins the fight fair and square. It always looks bad for fighters and their promoters to cry foul and question the judges for scoring a fight in a particular way.
If the judges see Golovkin as the winner, then should be good enough for Canelo, De La Hoya and Golden Boy. They have a rematch clause that they can invoke to force a second fight, though they don’t really need the rematch clause to get a second fight. I imagine that Golovkin will gladly fight Canelo 2 or 3 times. It’s a great opportunity for Golovkin to showcase his skills to the boxing world by fighting Canelo as many times as possible. At the end of the way, we’ll find out if the Golovkin fight will be a good for Canelo. I don’t think it will.
