By Joss Gooseman: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez: Although cutting off the ring is one his many talents, Gennady “GGG”Golovkin has been noted to have had trouble fighting movers and slick boxers, and has been more successful with fighters who chose to stand in front of him and trade.
Canelo may not have quick feet like Floyd Mayweather Jr., but he has underrated but superb head and upper body movements as his main method of defense.
If we look at his fights, Canelo is actually very hard to hit cleanly.
If he can utilize this defense in tandem with his counter-punching which he is noted for, I believe he will be successful.
The important thing is to pace himself and time his shots, he can not afford the luxury of exhausting himself then taking breaks against the ropes to pause and rest within rounds as he has been known to do as Golovkin will murder him at the ropes.
Imo, gaining the muscle mass as he did will be his undoing, as the muscles will require a lot of oxygen, thus stamina, but again he can compensate for this if he smartly paces himself.
Canelo is a known combination puncher, and as of late, Golovkin has been susceptible to the uppercut, so the left hand uppercut followed quickly by a left hook to the body will be a lethal weapon in this fight for Canelo as he has shown in the Alfredo Angulo fight.
He has to make use of his fast counters and combos but in a smart way as not exhaust himself in doing so.
If he can do this all night, then he’ll win by decision.
Gennady Golovkin:
One of most noted shots of Golovkin is his jab. It is stiff and quite powerful that makes his opponents think twice in their offensive game.
He also executes creative follow-through from that jab. From this jab he can keep his distance, and time his shots as we have seen in the Lemieux fight.
He should take it easy in the first few rounds, avoid getting hit and just fire that jab to let Canelo feel it and make him expect it.
Then he can turn up the heat from the mid round onward as Canelo tires out.
Feint the jab with the lead hand and turn into a hook, as Golovkin is very good at executing this move and he will start to hurt Canelo with big shots.
Also Golovkin is very good at piercing defensive guards, he usually probes with his right hand, throw a light left hook but powers up his next shot, the uppercut or the straight right.
He is very accurate and precise on his shots, and one of the reasons for this, I’m sure most casual boxing fans don’t know, as the power alone is dazzling in and of itself is the way he can position himself to fire a punch using what is known as the pivot and the shift.
It reminds me of Mike Tyson and the way he “hops” with both feet to change position to create an angle to shoot his left hook.
Due to Golovkin’s power on both hands, he can land a shot to the top the head, right above the guard and can still hurt his opponents as has been shown in the Marco Antonio Rubio fight.
If he can use incremental and progressive pressure on Canelo, he will catch him in the later rounds and will get a stoppage victory.