By Dan Ambrose: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez has a lot riding on his fight against middleweight knockout artist Gennady “GGG” Golovkin on September 16. Canelo has not only chance to beat Golovkin to capture his three middleweight titles, but he also can gain a great deal of boxing fans that have been slow in becoming fans of his.
To become a colossal crossover star like his promoter Oscar De La Hoya was during his career, Canelo needs wins over fighters like Golovkin to get those on board willing to purchase his fights on HBO pay-per-view. Canelo probably won’t become a crossover star if his victory over GGG is controversial like we just saw with Jeff Horn in his win over Manny Pacquiao.
A questionable decision handed down by 3 judges isn’t going to make boxing fans believe in Canelo if the decision is a controversial one. The boxing fans will make on their own decision apart from the judges. Canelo has already had the benefit of 2 controversial decisions during his career against Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara. Canelo not have that that happen to him in the Golovkin fight. He’s got to show that he can beat him without help from the judges.
Canelo has a major thing getting in the way of him becoming a crossover attraction in the U.S, and that’s his inability to speak English. He doesn’t even appear to try to speak English. I don’t know of too many fighters in the past that became crossover stars in the U.S when they couldn’t speak English. I’m talking about becoming crossover star to where the U.S boxing public is purchasing your fights on PPV. Canelo hasn’t shown that he can bring in huge PPV numbers unless he’s matched against guys like Floyd Mayweather Jr., Miguel Cotto and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.
“Abel has new ideas for this fight – exciting ideas — and I need to be my best to perform in the ring,” said Golovkin. “I don’t care about pound for pound. This is real. This is about being the champion of the world.”
Golovkin isn’t going to let Canelo become a major star at his expense. He plans on beating the brakes off of the 27-year-old Canelo, thanks to whatever ideas that his trainer Abel Sanchez is cooking up for him.
We can all speculate what those ideas are that Sanchez has for Golovkin. I think there’s only 2 things that Golovkin can do against Canelo that would be a little different from the way he’s fought in the past. Golovkin has some tricks up his sleeves that he intends on using against Canelo.
GGG’s trainer Abel Sanchez said recently that he wouldn’t be fighting like Floyd Mayweather Jr. and playing it safe for 12 rounds. He wants Golovkin to make it exciting for the boxing fans. Sanchez knows that if Golovkin beats Canelo by just jabbing him for a full 12 round match, he’s going to be come out of the fight without having gained much in winning over the boxing public.
Sanchez is a wise trainer. He knows that how you win is more important than just winning the fight. Some fighters don’t mind winning ugly by jabbing, running, holding, and fouling for 12 rounds. Golovkin can’t do that, because he wants to become a big star. You cannot become a big PPV fighter by spoiling your way to victory.
Mayweather was able to become a PPV attraction for a variety of reasons. He was a U.S Olympian with fast hands, excellent defensive skills, and he had the good luck of getting important fights against the likes of De La Hoya, Zab Judah, Diego Corrales, Shane Mosley and Jose Luis Castillo. Fighting all of those guys turned Mayweather into a big PPV star. Golovkin hasn’t been able to get a lot of big fights during his boxing career. That’s why it’s important that he looks as good as possible against Canelo on September 16. Triple G needs to beat Canelo in an impressive style and not mess things up by spoiling.
The likely plan by Sanchez for Golovkin to follow against Canelo is to put a great deal of heat on him. In other words, Golovkin is going to make Canelo fight at full bore for the entire fight. The last trainer Emanuel Steward noticed early on in Canelo’s career that he had stamina problems, and that he could only fight in short bursts of activity.
Steward knew even back then that Canelo would be vulnerable against fighters that were able to push him to fight hard for a full 12 rounds rather than letting him dictate the pace of the fight so that he get his needed rest breaks. Steward was ahead of his time in seeing the weakness in Canelo’s game. Canelo has been fortunate that he hasn’t too many fighters that have exposed this weakness. Up until now, only Mayweather and Trout were able to force Canelo to fight at a fast pace that tired him out. Liam Smith tried to, but he gassed out due to him having even worse stamina issues than Canelo. Is Sanchez has spotted the same flaws in Canelo’s game that Emanuel Steward noticed, then we could see a real massacre taking place on September 16 with Golovkin wearing down the redheaded Canelo with nonstop action.
I have a feeling that Golovkin is going to keep Canelo from taking his career to the next level. Canelo needs Golovkin’s scalp in the worst way. Golden Boy Promotions obviously knows that, which they’ve finally made the fight. They’ve noticed that Canelo isn’t getting more popular because he’s not facing credible opposition.
To become that big crossover star in the U.S, Canelo needs valuable scalps like Golovkin, Danny Jacobs, Jermall Charlo, Jermell Charlo, Demetrius Andrade, Erislandy Lara, Austin Trout, Billy Joe Saunders, Ryota Murata, Callum Smith, George Groves, Luis Arias, David Lemieux, Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez, Chris Eubank Jr. and Sergey Derevyanchenko. I had to throw in some fighters from 154 and 168, as there are a lot of top guys that Canelo should be able to fight that skirt the 160lb division. To become a star, Canelo has to be open to fighting guys in those three divisions rather than only facing middleweights. Canelo has unfinished business with Trout and Lara due to his controversial wins over them. It would be nice to see him take them on again so that he can show the boxing fans that he can beat them without being given controversial wins. Like I was saying earlier, it’s important not only that you get the win, but it’s how you get the win. Canelo can’t win fights like we saw with Jeff Horn over Pacquiao. He has to show the fans that he deserves to get his hand raised.