By Matthias Predonzan: The very good news for boxing fans is that we saw a very good fight last Saturday night between Saul Canelo Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) and Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) that lived up to expectations. Emotionally I was very surprised to see Golovkin proclaimed to keep his titles with a 12 round draw against Canelo at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
I had Saul “Canelo” Alvarez winning 115-110, with 3 rounds even, in which, by the way, I had a preference for Canelo. Even if then you consider these 3 close rounds for GGG, the math says that Canelo still had won the fight. But it was a split of a second and then everything fell in place again in my mind; in fact, business wise, this is the perfect outcome for the fight.
Golovkin is clearly over the crest with his boxing career. He is really slow and really one-dimensional fighter that couldn’t adjust to a different game-plan against Canelo.
The Canelo vs. Golovkin fight was the confirmation of what we had seen in the Kell Brook and Daniel Jacobs fights involving Triple G.
I had criticized Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya for having compared the Canelo-Golovkin fight to big fights of the past, like Marvin Hagler vs. Sugar Ray Leonard, because GGG and Canelo do not have fought a strong opposition in their careers and therefore, at the moment, they do not belong on the same league of such great boxing legends of the past. But this fight did remind me, indeed, tactically, of the Hagler vs. Leonard fight. As in that fight, one fighter (or his promoter) waited until he saw sign of decline in the contender and in last Saturday’s Canelo vs. GGG fight too, the speed, timing and movement of the coming-up-in-weight fighter Canelo were the key elements for victory.
The 2 differences with the Canelo and Golovkin fight, to me, were a more clear supremacy of Canelo over GGG – than Leonard over Hagler – and obviously a very questionable outcome. Having said that, because of the clear decline of GGG’s condition, if Canelo were proclaimed the winner – like should have been, in my opinion – the rematch fight wouldn’t have been that profitable, business wise, because, honestly, no rematch would have been needed and not much interest would have been generated.
On the contrary, we have now many fans that are angry with the unfair decision and also convinced that Canelo will retaliate with a KO win over GGG in the next fight, willing to see a second fight between Canelo and GGG.
Again, last Saturday night the sport lost with the Golovkin-Canelo fight and the business won but at least, we saw a very good fight.
For who is old enough to remember them, nothing compared to the great middleweight fights of the past, that Oscar loves to mention so much.