By Dan Ambrose: Gennady “GGG” Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez says Saul “Canelo” Alvarez will be forced to fight Golovkin in a brawling manner in their fight on September 16th. It won’t be the boxing match that Canelo has been saying it’ll be. Canelo has suggested to the media that he will nullify Triple G’s power by fighting him either on long range or up close to take his power in their fight on HBO pay-per-view at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Sanchez doesn’t see that as possible. Sanchez thinks Canelo’s fans wouldn’t forgive him if he chose to box GGG for 12 rounds instead of mixing it up with him the way that they want him to. Canelo is never proven himself as an outside fighter. He’s always been a close to medium range guy in his fights.
It’ll be difficult for Canelo to box Golovkin, as he doesn’t have the arm length or the same quality jab to win that kind of fight. GGG has the longer reach, and the far better jab. Canelo will be dooming himself to defeat if he stays on the outside for 12 rounds. Of course, Canelo fought on the outside for the last 6 rounds in his fight against Austin Trout, and he was able to win a controversial decision over the American. Trout was out-jabbing the shorter-armed Canelo for the full 12 rounds, but the judges still gave Canelo the win. Golovkin will need to be cognizant of the possibility that he might need a knockout of Canelo to be given the win.
“I expect a shock fight, because of the styles of both fighters,” said Sanchez to ESPN Deportes. ”I do not think that Canelo can fight a distance, with him trying to avoid the exchange of blows, because his followers would not forgive him,” said Sanchez.
I don’t think Canelo cares whether he gets dumped on by his boxing fans if he chooses to stay on the outside all night long against Golovkin. It didn’t bother Canelo to stay on the outside when he fought Austin Trout. That was an ugly watch fight. It wasn’t even like watching a Canelo fight. It looked like gave up on the idea of mixing it up with Trout after he was hurt by him with a body shot in round 7. At that point, Canelo spent the last half of the fight with his back against the ropes, seemingly imitating Floyd Mayweather Jr. All Canelo was doing was jabbing with his back against the ropes, and throwing power shots that were coming up short of the mark.
When Canelo is frightened, I see going to the ropes, which is what he’ll likely do against Golovkin. Canelo had success with the scoring of the Trout fight with him pinned against the ropes. He might think he can do the same thing against Triple G. I don’t think it’ll work against Golovkin though, because he’ll commit to his power shots and look to take Canelo’s head off. Trout didn’t have the punching power to knockout the trapped Canelo. Golovkin definitely has the power to hurt Canelo if he plays possum and traps himself against the ropes.
“It’s a fight that comes at a good time for the two boxers, after we’ve spent two years trying to make it happen,” said Sanchez. ”It’s not that bad, compared to the five years it took to sign Pacquiao’s fight against Mayweather. It arrived too late,” said Sanchez.
Two years isn’t that long of a time for the boxing public to have had to wait for the Canelo-Golovkin fight. You can argue that it should have happened 2 years ago though rather than now. I don’t Golovkin is that much more popular now than he was in 2015 after he beat David Lemieux? There are a lot of boxing fans that believe that Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya wanted to wait until Golovkin was old, and starting to show signs of slippage before he let Canelo fight him.
Golovkin is 35-years-old now, and he definitely has shown signs of age in his last 2 fights against Danny Jacobs and Kell Brook. Whether that was intentional on Golovkin’s part not to fight at his best is the million questions. What makes some boxing fans feel it was an intentional on GGG’s part to take it easy in his last two fights was the way Golovkin backed off after he had Jacobs on the canvas in the 4th round of their fight on March 18? Golovkin didn’t look to finish Jacobs off the way he could have and should have.
If Golovkin gets Canelo in the same spot, you can bet that he’ll go for broke looking to knock him out. Golovkin can’t afford to have Canelo go the full 12 rounds, as we could see another controversial decision favoring him. Besides Canelo’s controversial win over Trout, he also had an even more controversial win over Erislandy Lara. Canelo landed only 31 head shots in the entire fight. That’s got to be very rare for a fighter to win a fight without a knockdown and having landed only 31 head shots. The scoring was very questionable for that fight. Golovkin cannot let Canelo finish the fight on his feet, given the history of the redheaded star being involved in controversial fights that have favored him.
“There are some who consider that GGG is in decline and use as an argument the fight he offered against Danny Jacobs, but they are going to take a surprise,” said Sánchez.
If Golovkin is at the same level he was when he beat David Lemieux in 2015, Canelo is going to be in a world of hurt on September 16. Golovkin made it look easy in defeating a very dangerous smaller fighter than himself. Lemieux is a little taller than Canelo. Lemieux didn’t have the size to compete with Golovkin or the boxing skills. I don’t know what the 5’8” Canelo is going to be able to do. Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya has been waiting for him to grow into the middleweight division.
I don’t know if that’s possible. As far as Canelo’s weight goes, he’s been a middleweight for at least 2 years, possibly 3 years. Canelo’s problem is his limited height. Over the years, there haven’t been too many successful 5’8” middleweights. Miguel Cotto was more of a paper champion than a true middleweight champion. Cotto beat an old and injured Sergio Martinez o win the WBC middleweight title in 2014. Cotto never proved himself against a good middleweight. De La Hoya had it wrong. Canelo stopped growing far as his height goes a long time ago. It’s his lack of height and reach that is going to be a problem for him against Golovkin. If Canelo can somehow deal with Golovkin’s size advantage, then he’ll win the fight. I don’t know if he’s going to be able to do that through.
There are a lot of boxing fans that view Golovkin as having slipped a notch. It’s not just the fans that see Golovkin as having lost a few steps. Fighters and trainers also think Golovkin isn’t the same. However, what they aren’t saying is he’s lost his power. They feel that Golovkin is just as powerful as he’s always been. The power is the same, and that’s the whole problem for Canelo. He’s never been hit as hard as he’s going to be hit by Golovkin on September 16.
Canelo has never fought anyone with the same kind of jab as Golovkin, and the same boxing skills and pedigree. Canelo has fought some guys that were good, but in some cases they were old and much smaller than him. I’m talking about Shane Mosley, Carlos Baldomir, and Miguel Cotto. Those were all good fighters during their best years of their careers, but by the time Canelo fought them, they had seen better days.