By Sean Jones: Gennady “GGG” Golovkin has a strong message for Saul “Canelo” Alvarez for their fight next Saturday night is giving him a stern warning that he could wind up getting knocked out in their fight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
GGG vs. Canelo Alvarez will be fighting each other in 7 days from now at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on HBO pay-per-view. Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya is predicting the fight will bring in over 3 million buys on HBO. That would be impressive if it did, because it didn’t have the same marketing push that the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor fight did for their August 26 event on Showtime PPV.
The media really gave that fight a big boost by covering it extensively and taking it to death even long after the match was done. If Canelo-Golovkin brings in over 3 million buys, you have to wonder how many buys it would have brought in if it didn’t have major competition from the Mayweather-McGregor fight.
Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) wants Canelo to knock that he’s not one of his past opponents in Amir Khan or Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., both of which Canelo easily beat. Moreover, Golovkin wants the Golden Boy Promotions star to know that he’s not Daniel Jacobs, who Golovkin recently beat by a 12 round unanimous decision last March. Golovkin doesn’t intend on letting Canelo (49-1-1, 34 KOs) survive the distance. Golovkin might feel that if he allows Canelo to make it the full 12 rounds, the judges will automatically give the popular Mexican star the victory regardless of how the fight has played out. Golovkin doesn’t have nearly the same popularity that Canelo has, and he’s not someone that fights in Las Vegas on a frequent basis like he does.
“There are no survivors in my fights,” said Golovkin. “Boxing is a business. If I look great against Jacobs — if I knocked him out — I would not be getting this fight with Canelo now,” Golovkin said.
It sounds like Golovkin is starting to fully understand his predicament in fighting Canelo. That at least puts Golovkin in the position where he can keep himself from getting potentially robbed on September 16. When a fighter realizes what he’s up against in walking into the home turf of another fighter like Canelo, then that puts them that much ahead of the game. Golovkin knows now that he needs to swing for the fences for 12 rounds, and make sure that he keeps the recently bulked up Canelo under a tremendous amount of pressure so that he doesn’t wind up suffering the same fate as past Canelo opponents Erislandy Lara and Austin Trout. Those guys found out the hard way what happens if you don’t knock Canelo out. You can wind up losing a controversial decision by scores that look way out of whack with the actual fights that took place If Canelo beats Golovkin without controversy, then he’ll gain a lot of respect in the boxing world. That’s what you’ve got to hope for if you’re Canelo, because if it’s close, there will be a lot of boxing fans on both sides complaining about the outcome afterwards, especially if Canelo gets the win. The fans would be complaining if Canelo wins by a controversial decision due to his past questionable wins over Trout and Lara.
“Jacobs was a very good fighter and gave me good learning experience going 12 rounds,” said Golovkin. “I have never done that before. I felt amazing going 12 rounds for the first time. Jacobs gives everyone problems.”
Golovkin’s decision win over Jacobs earlier this year on March 18 ended a 23-fight knockout streak that had lasted 9 years from 2008 to 2017. While some boxing fans would point out that Golovkin knocked out a lot of mediocre opponents during that run, he did stop some quality guys like David Lemieux, Marco Antonio Rubio, Martin Murray and Kell Brook. Those aren’t bad opponents. Golovkin didn’t fight like he wanted to KO Jacobs. GGG fought him like he wanted to keep him around for the full 12 rounds. Golovkin wasn’t on a seek and destroy mission against Jacobs in the way that Dmitry Pirog was when he fought him in 2010. Pirog had no respect for Jacobs. Pirog was on a single-minded mission to separate Jacobs from his senses, and he succeeded in stopping him in the 6th round. Had Golovkin fought Jacobs in the same way, he likely would have knocked him out early. Of course, if Golovkin had knocked out Jacobs, he probably wouldn’t have gotten the fight against Canelo. That’s what Golovkin and his trainer Abel Sanchez both believe. They believe they would have been put on hold for another extended period time while Canelo padded his record against more Khan and Liam Smith type opponents.
Golovkin will have a chance to prove the critics wrong that he’s not over-the-hill like many of them believe him to be after his wins over Jacobs and Brook. Golovkin got hit in both of those fights, but he didn’t get hit a lot. Brook was on the run for most of the fight. Jacobs landed some shots, but he was out-landed by Golovkin. Many of the shots that Jacobs was given credit for landing by the punch stats were shots that were picked off on the gloves of Golovkin. It shows you that the human scoring done by people at fights is still an imperfect art. A knockout win for Golovkin over Canelo will cause a lot of boxing fans and experts to have to re-think their belief that he’s slipping. At the same time, they’ll need to reevaluate their opinions on Canelo being the next ruler of the middleweight division.
If Canelo can’t get past Golovkin, then it makes you wonder whether he’ll be able to hang with the other top middleweights like Jermall Charlo, Sergiy Derevyanchenko and Jacobs. It’s doubtful that Golden Boy will let Canelo fight any of those guys if he gets knocked out by Golovkin. Canelo will be taken back to an earlier stage of his development to try and rebuild his career and shattered confidence. The first thing that Canelo will need to address is all the muscle weight that he’s put on for the Triple G fight. That weight is going to need to come off, because Canelo is not going to be able to beat the best fighters in the division if he can’t fight hard without gassing out.
Golovkin is coming off a much tougher fight against Jacobs than Canelo is with his fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on May 6. De La Hoya says the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight was a farce, but Canelo-Chavez Jr. was just as big a farce due to how weight drained Chavez Jr. looked in having to melt down to 164.5 lbs. to make the catch-weight for the fight.
“If Gennady had knocked Jacobs out, there is no way Golden Boy would have the confidence to put Canelo in with us this year,” Sanchez said. “Chavez hasn’t fought under 167 pounds in five years. He was drained [to get to the contract limit of 164.5 pounds] and barely threw a punch. If that same Chavez fights Gennady, there is no question Gennady knocks him out. Chavez was a sitting duck.”
That was a really bad fight between Canelo and Chavez Jr. Golovkin would have likely butchered Chavez Jr. had he been inside the ring with him last May instead of Canelo. Of course, Canelo’s boxing fans might say that he wasn’t a full-fledged middleweight at the time, and now he is because he bulked up. I don’t think Canelo is hitting any harder now that he’s put on 15 lbs. of muscle in 4 months of training for the GGG fight. If anything, Canelo would have faded quicker had he been as big as he is now when he fought Chavez Jr.
It’s clear that Golovkin has the much better win in his last fight than Canelo did in beating Chavez Jr. Obviously when you put Canelo in with a punching bag like Chavez Jr. and Golovkin in with Jacobs, Canelo is going to come out looking like the better fighter. That’s why a lot of casual boxing fans believe Canelo will win. They were brain washed by his performances over weak opponents in his last 3 fights against Chavez Jr., Liam Smith and Amir Khan.
The thing that we don’t know about Canelo is whether the new weight that he’s put on in training camp for the GGG fight will make him a better or worse fighter. Personally, I think it’s going to hurt Canelo in a bad way. When you’ve been used to fighting at a certain weight for an extended period, if you suddenly pack on 15 lbs. of muscle or fat, it’s tough on your heart to have to pump oxygen to all that new weight. Canelo was already turning red in the face and exhausting himself when fighting the lesser guys during his career. Now that he’s put on more weight, his stamina is going to be going to be a lot worse than it ever has. I wouldn’t be surprised if Canelo is done by the 4th round from him gassing out early. That muscle Canelo has put on is muscle that only helps for short fights. If this was a sprint for a short distance, Canelo would have an advantage, but that’s not what this fight is all about. It’s going to be a 12-round fight, and it’s going to require Canelo to have great stamina for him to have a chance of beating GGG. I don’t think Canelo will have nearly good enough stamina to compete in this fight.