By Allan Fox: Ricky Hatton is high on Saul “Canelo” Alvarez right now and leaning in his direction to do the job on middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin on September 16. Hatton, a former two division world champion, says he keeps changing his mind about the Canelo-GGG fight.
Hatton states that he originally thought Triple G would be the one that would win that fight over Canelo (49-1-1, 34 KOs). But after seeing the problems Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) had in his recent fight against Daniel Jacobs on March 18, he’s looking at Canelo as the guy that just might do the job.
Hatton is impressed with the 27-year-old Canelo’s punching power and especially his body punching. He doesn’t think Golovkin has been hit to the body by anyone during his 11-year pro career as of yet.
Canelo and Golovkin will be fighting on September 16 in a big showdown on HBO PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The winner of the Canelo-Golovkin fight will have the bragging rights to say that they are the best fighter in the middleweight division, as they’ll hold 3 of the 4 160 lb. titles.
WBO champion Billy Joe Saunders would still remain as the final obstacle for the Canelo vs. Golovkin winner to tackle, but he’s not seen as much of a problem due to his lack of power and poor stamina.
“It’s the best fight that can be made in boxing,” said Hatton to IFL TV in talking about the Canelo vs. GGG fight. “You’ve got two pound-for-pounders. You probably got the top 3 and 4 pound-for-pound in the world at the minute. The way they fight and the skills, that’s an absolute dream,” said Hatton.
Hatton is probably correct about Canelo-GGG being the best fight that can be made in boxing right now. What’s sad is it’s probably not going to bring in nearly as many pay-per-view buys as the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor fight, which will be taking place 3 weeks ahead of the Golovkin-Canelo fight on August 26. It shows you that the casual boxing fans have scant knowledge about how good of a fight Canelo vs. GGG is. The casual fans are more aware of Mayweather and McGregor. That’s likely due to their personalities rather than how well they fight. It obviously helps that McGregor and Mayweather are both great fighters in their different sports, but it’s their personalities that helps drive interest in their fights. Canelo doesn’t speak English, and he rarely attempts to. He seems to be bashful when it comes to speaking English. Golovkin speaks only broken English, and he tends to do very little trash talking. That’s what’s missing from the Canelo and Golovkin fight. The two fighters aren’t doing enough trash talking in the media to get more attention to their September 16 fight with the casual boxing fans. They’re too reserved when they do speak, and they seem to lack the over the top personalities needed to get the casual boxing public to focus their attention on their fight rather than on the Mayweather-McGregor circus event on August 26.
“I keep changing my mind,” said Hatton in discussing his struggles to pick the winner for the Canelo-Golovkin fight. “I always thought Golovkin [would beat Canelo] until his last fight where he struggled a little bit,” said Hatton in talking about Golovkin’s fight against Danny Jacobs on March 18. “Canelo hits very, very hard, especially to the body. Nobody has hit Triple G to the body yet. When you get hit down there, it can be difficult,” said Hatton.
Canelo’s punching power is not as good as Hatton believes it to be. We just saw how Canelo couldn’t put a dent on the chin of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in their fight on May 6. That fight showed that Canelo did not bring his power up with him from the 154lb division where he’s been fighting for the last 7 years. Canelo does have power, but not the kind of power that guys like Golovkin, Danny Jacobs, Jermall Charlo and David Lemieux possess. Those guys are on a different level. Jermell Charlo is also a very big puncher. He’s not at the level of his twin brother Jermall Charlo, but I still rate his power as better than Canelo’s.
The body punching that Canelo does isn’t going to be enough of a factor for him to get any real edge against Golovkin. Canelo doesn’t throw a lot of body shots. He’s mostly a head hunter. When he does go to the body, he’s vulnerable to getting hit. I don’t think Canelo is going to want to take any chances of getting nailed by any of Golovkin’s big punches in this fight if he can help it.
If you look at Canelo’s fights against Austin Trout, James Kirkland and Floyd Mayweather, he wasn’t throwing a lot of body shots. The reason for that was because he was getting hit by those guys. Canelo couldn’t lower his head to throw body shots, because Trout, Mayweather and Kirkland would have nailed him. Canelo is a good puncher when he’s facing guys that don’t hit him back. Canelo was able to land body shots against Amir Khan and Liam Smith, but those were fighters with limited talent and not much in the way of punching power.
Hatton: I hope McGregor knocks Mayweather out
Hatton says he’s hoping Conor McGregor knocks Mayweather out in their fight on August 26 on Showtime PPV at the T-Mobile Arena. Hatton doubts that McGregor will be able to pull off the upset. He’d like to see McGregor do it, but his lack of boxing experience is going to be a problem for him. Hatton figures that if Canelo, Oscar De La Hoya and himself were unable to land on Mayweather, then there’s no chance that McGregor will be able to hit him.
“I have a lot of Irish fans and friends,” said Hatton. “I’m a fan of Conor McGregor. I think he’s a character. I’d love to meet him someday. He’s my type of guy. But if you ask me how the actual fight would go, we’re talking about Canelo there, what a wonder fighter he is. He’s pound-for-pound, he’s up there, you know? He couldn’t lay a glove on Mayweather. Oscar De La Hoya, probably one of the most technical boxers of my era, he couldn’t land on him. I couldn’t do it. As good as puncher he is in the UFC, this is a boxing match. I can’t see how Conor is going to solve the puzzle that so many of us couldn’t. I hope he does. I hope he knocks him out. If you ask me, honestly, I’d love to see it, but I can’t see it,” said Hatton.
Hatton sounds more than a little bitter about his 10th round knockout loss to Mayweather from December 8, 2007. Mayweather really schooled Hatton in that fight for 9 rounds before knocking him out in the 10th. Hatton tried to rush Mayweather, and he was caught with a check left hook and knocked out after slamming into the ring post. That loss for Hatton was the beginning of the end of his boxing career. Hatton only fought 4 times more after that, beating Juan Lazcano and Paulie Malignaggi before losing to Manny Pacquiao and Vyacheslav Senchenko. Hatton retired after his loss to Senchenko in 2012.
