By Eric Thomas: Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) will need to be patient and wait 8 months before he can have the chance to face Mexican star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) in a rematch on May 5 on Cinco de Mayo. Alvarez, 27, only fights 2 times per year now, and those dates fall on the Mexican holidays. Alvarez has taken over the dates that Floyd Mayweather Jr. previously fought on.
The Alvarez vs. Gennady rematch still hasn’t been negotiated, but it’s likely headed back to Vegas for May 5, 2018.
Making the boxing community wait 8 months for a rematch with Gennady wouldn’t be an issue if the Alvarez-GGG fight hadn’t ended in a controversial 12 round draw. If the fans had paid for a fight that ended with either of them winning, it wouldn’t be nearly a big deal for Alvarez to be out of the ring for the next 8 months.
The anger with the fans, and the bad scoring for the Alvarez and GGG fight at the T-Mobile Arena, it creates the need for a rematch to take place a great deal sooner than May of 2018. The fans deserve a rematch between Alvarez and Gennady sooner than next year.
Saul is young enough to return to the ring in December to face Golovkin. Golden Boy Promotions, the promoters for Alvarez, hasn’t said anything about him being injured during the fight with Triple G. If the idea is for Alvarez to stay out of the ring for the next 8 months to work on his poor conditioning, I don’t think that’s going to be a winner for him. Alvarez will never have great conditioning no matter how much aerobic activity he does in my opinion.
If you look at Alvarez’s earliest fights in his career when he was only 20, he was gassing out even then. How does a fighter not have good stamina when he’s only 20? Alvarez can try and improve his conditioning, but I don’t think he’s going to be able to improve that area of his game to have the same kind of engine that Golovkin possesses. With that being said, Alvarez will help himself if he loses some muscle weight and gets down to around 165-170 lbs. for the rematch with Golovkin. Alvarez would have more hand speed and agility at that weight. I don’t see losing muscle weight improving Alvarez’s stamina though. Alvarez faded out against Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Austin Trout, and his weight in those fights was from 165 to 170.
There’s a massive amount of boxing fans that are eager to see Alvarez and Golovkin fight a rematch to clear up the controversy of their recent fight on September 16, which was ruled a 12-round draw. Anytime a fight of that magnitude is scored a draw, it leaves nobody happy, especially the fans that paid a lot of money to see the fight. When judges fail to score a fight correctly in a logical way, it angers the fans even more.
The Alvarez-Golovkin fight results were viewed as tainted by many fans because of the 2 scores that were handed down by the judges with them scoring it 114-114 and 118-110 for Alvarez. It’s regrettable that boxing doesn’t do away with draws altogether, because in this day in age, it’s important that the sport doesn’t lose fans based on disappointing outcomes like the one we saw in the Alvarez-GGG fight. If the judges can’t be improved, then boxing needs to get rid of draws so that someone always wins. Fans don’t want to pay their hard-earned money to watch a fight where neither fighter wins nor a fight in which the guy that appeared to lose the fight is given a draw.
Boxing fans would like to see Alvarez back inside the ring in December or January for the rematch. It would be good for Alvarez to fight soon so he can keep his boxing fans from jumping ship. If you look at social media, there is a great deal of angry boxing fans about Alvarez’s 12 round draw he was given against Gennady. Many of these fans think Alvarez was given a draw to keep him as a major attraction in boxing in Las Vegas.
There were already heaps of angry boxing fans that saw Alvarez and Golden Boy ducking Gennady for 2 years. It’s fine for Alvarez to avoid a fighter like Gennady. That’s one thing, but for Alvarez to be viewed as being given a win that he didn’t deserve it’s bad for him and it’s not good for his popularity in the sport. Alvarez showing some courage right now by getting back into the ring in December or January would be a good way to show the boxing fans that he’s not a diva, just looking to make Gennady age while waiting for a rematch.
One very important reason why Alvarez SHOULD fight Gennady in December or January is the view the people in boxing have about him being the loser of the September 16 fight. When you lose a fight, you’re supposed to show the boxing fans that you want to get back into the ring ASAP to fight the guy that beat you. Alvarez deciding, he wants to take the rest of 2017 off, it comes across like he’s acting like he won the Gennady fight instead of being given a controversial/gift draw. The mass number of Alvarez’s fans unhappy with the draw from the Gennady fight would be pleased if he made up to them by fighting in December or January instead of making them all wait until May 5 before fighting Gennady a second time. The fans are the ones that count.
When Alvarez first signed on with HBO Boxing in 2015, he was supposed to fight 3 times a year with 1 of those fights being on regular HBO instead of PPV. But after fighting James Kirkland on regular HBO on May 9, 2015, it’s been nothing but PPV fights for Alvarez, and he’s NEVER fought more than 2 times per year. Alvarez has not fought 3 times per year as planned, even though he’s been more than young enough to stay that busy.
If Gennady is going to need to wait until next year for him to get a second fight with Alvarez, then he should fight in December against someone else. Gennady is giving up a payday for him to wait until May of next year to fight Alvarez. That means whatever money Gennady gets against Alvarez won’t be as much when you factor in that he lost a payday by not fighting in December.