By Jeff Aranow: Despite never having faced Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in his life, Floyd Mayweather Jr. is recommending that Saul “Canelo” Alvarez attack him to the body this Saturday night to beat him in their fight on HBO PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
It’s anyone’s guess whether Mayweather spotted a flaw in GGG’s past fights when it comes to taking body shots or if this is just something that he believes works against any fighter. At any case, Mayweather thinks Canelo can beat Golovkin by hitting him to the body. Triple G’s trainer Abel Sanchez has already heard the news about Mayweather’s advice to Canelo, and he thinks it’ll be a bad idea for him to do that.
Sanchez says if Canelo drops his head to throw a body shot, he could run into something from Golovkin that will make him sorry that he did that. If Canelo gets knocked out by Golovkin while throwing a body shot, it won’t be a big deal to Mayweather. He’s not the one whose career will suffer for it. It’ll be Canelo that will find himself on the same street as Roman Gonzalez in cruising down the boulevard of broken dreams.
A rematch between Mayweather and Canelo would make the 40-year-old “Money” another big payday without him having to fight Conor McGregor in the octagon, which is probably the only way the fans would be willing to purchase a second fight between them. Canelo is the only fighter from the boxing world that the fans would pay to see Mayweather fight in large numbers. Canelo has a huge fan base.
Mayweather has said in the past that he could beat Golovkin, who he describes as “straight up and down” with “no special effects.” It’s unclear what Mayweather means by “no special effects.” I guess it means Golovkin doesn’t move a lot and isn’t fast of hand. The way Mayweather looked against Conor McGregor last month, I think he’d be hard-pressed to go 4 rounds with Golovkin.
“He’s got to go to the body,” Mayweather Jr. said to the latimes.com about Golden Boy star Canelo. “He can stop him if he goes to the body.”
There are a number of different scenarios possible if Canelo attempts to go to the body of GGG and they are as follows:
1. Canelo lands a body shot and stops GGG
2. Canelo tries to go to the body and gets knocked out himself due to him leaving his head unprotected
3. Canelo throws a body shot, it has no effect, and Golovkin counters him with a hard head shot that sends him scurrying away
4. Alvarez throws to the body, and GGG fires back with his own body shot that weakens the red-headed fighter.
“It ain’t that Triple-G [Golovkin] is weak to the body, but if you go down there, you’ll find a lot of stuff you haven’t seen before,” Floyd Mayweather Sr. said It happens that way.”
Mayweather beat Canelo by a 12 round majority decision in 2013 in a big money fight in Las Vegas. Ever since that victory, Mayweather has been pumping up Canelo, saying he’s a great fighter and the future for the sport. Unfortunately, Canelo hasn’t proven he’s the great fighter that Mayweather believes him to be by taking on the best. Canelo hasn’t been fighting the class of the 154 and 160 lb. divisions.
Canelo had a fight against Erislandy Lara that he won a controversial decision in 2014. Canelo didn’t look like the star that Mayweather was making him out to be. He looked like a fighter that won a gift decision. Since that fight, Canelo been carefully looked after by Golden Boy with his fights being against these guys:
• James Kirkland
• Miguel Cotto
• Amir Khan
• Liam Smith
• Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.
While some boxing fans might say those were the best at 154 and 160, I think most knowledgeable fans would say those were beatable guys given to Canelo to keep him from losing again. The wins have convinced a lot of people that Canelo is the best. Canelo’s confidence is quite high after beating those fighters. We’ll see if Canelo can handle real thing when he gets inside the ring with Gennady on Saturday night. It’s going to be a bit of a shock to Canelo to go from fighting Khan, Smith, Chavez Jr., Cotto and Kirkland to facing Golovkin. It’s a world of difference.
Canelo might want to be suspicious about any advice given to him by Mayweather, because you never know if he really means this to help him or hurt him. Mayweather certainly didn’t help the promotion for the Canelo-GGG fight with his decision to stage his own fight against McGregor directly in front of it. I don’t know why Canelo would want anything to do with Mayweather and his helpful advice, as he undercut the Canelo-Triple G fight by staging his event fight against Conor McGregor last month on August 26.
That fight could bring in over 4 million PPV buys on Showtime. Canelo-GGG should be able to match the 1 million buys that Canelo’s fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. brought in on May 6 on HBO PPV. Golden Boy promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya is predicting the fight brings in 3 million buys, but it probably won’t. 1 million buys might be the top end for the fight. A lot of the boxing fans spent their money on the Mayweather-McGregor fight.
There’s a belief by some in the boxing world that Mayweather did this intentionally to hurt the Canelo vs. Golovkin promotion and cause it to lose PPV sales. Losing PPV sales due to the boxing fans being tapped out for money because of the fans having paid $100 to see Mayweather defeat UFC fighter McGregor 3 weeks before the Canelo vs. Gennady fight, it’s got to be disappointing. Mayweather could have picked any date to stage his event fight with McGregor. He didn’t need to put it within 3 weeks of the Canelo and Golovin fight.
Mayweather retired after the McGregor fight. He doesn’t want to stay on and fight the winner of the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight, even though he’d make a lot of money if he did. A lot of boxing fans would love to see Mayweather fight the Canelo-GGG winner. Golovkin has volunteered to move down to 154 to fight Mayweather, but thus far there’s been zero interest from him to take that fight.
A rematch between Canelo and Golovkin will bring in even more PPV sales than this Saturday’s fight, especially if Canelo comes out on top for the first fight.