By Sean Jones: Danny Garcia thinks Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin took bad punishment in his last 2 fights against Saul Canelo Alvarez and Danny Jacobs. Former 2-division world champion Garcia says Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) doesn’t fight with the “Mexican style” that he says he does.
Golovkin’s face wasn’t significantly marked up from his 12 round draw against Canelo on September 16 of this year on HBO PPV. Garcia still thinks Golovkin took bad punishment.
Garcia mentions that GGG is going to have to learn how to move his head in the future in his fights if he wants to win, because he’s getting hit too much now after stepping up his level of competition against Canelo (49-1-2, 34 KOs) and Jacobs in his last 2 fights. Garcia still had Golovkin winning 7 rounds to 5, but he just thinks he needs to work on not getting hit as much.
Garcia talks plenty about Golovkin needing to make improvements in his defense for the Canelo rematch, but what he should be talking about is the need for the judges to improve. 2 of the judges scored the fight in an arguably wacky way in scoring it 10 rounds to 2 [118-110] for Canelo and [114-114] 6 rounds to 6. If better judges aren’t assigned for the Canelo-Golovkin, then rematch will be tainted in the same way with another controversial decision. That’s bad for boxing. If the judges are going to turn in odd scores in fights that seem to have a clear winner, then the boxing fans that purchase the match on pay-per-view aren’t going to want to continue buying fights in the future.
Golovkin and Canelo are in negotiations for a rematch on May 5 of next year. Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez said he thought he could have it done by December 25. It appears the negotiations are going to need a little more time before it’s a done deal. It would be a shame if the fight doesn’t made for 2018. It benefits the 27-year-old Canelo to have Golovkin rematch extended into the future as far as possible, because he’s 35-years-old right now. The fight was already put off for 2 years by Golden Boy. They weren’t ready to make the Canelo-GGG fight when Golovkin was 33. They finally made the fight on September 16 of this year, and the match ended in controversy with the judges scoring it a 12 round draw. The fans disagreed with the way the judges scored the fight. They felt that Golovkin should have won.
“I wasn’t mad at a draw because Triple G was taking some punishment,” said Garcia to ES News Reporting. “In his last 2 fights, he’s taken a lot of punishment. Danny Jacobs landed a lot of big shots on him, and Canelo landed a lot of big shots,” said Garcia.
Garcia didn’t say anything about Canelo needing to improve his stamina. That was a glaring omission on Danny Garcia’s part, because Canelo’s inability to fight hard beyond the 1-minute mark of each 3-minute round made it impossible for him to win the fight. Canelo’s cardio problems were a FAR WORSE problem than Golovkin taking a 1-3 hard shots in each round. It’s interesting that Garcia forgot to mention that. The story of the fight, besides the strange scores turned in by the judges, was Canelo’s bad conditioning. Canelo came into the fight with a swelled up physique, with muscles and size he didn’t have 8 weeks prior when he met with Golovkin for the kickoff press conference. During that press conference, Canelo looked like a small middleweight. But 8 weeks later, Canelo was huge with size that suggested that he would be comfortable fighting at super middleweight. Canelo put on a lot of muscle weight for the Golovkin fight. Canelo’s physique was completely different from how it had looked in the past.
The bad thing about Canelo adding so much muscle size to his small 5’8″ frame, you can argue, is he was unable to fight hard for more than the first minute of each round. Canelo adding all that muscle in a short period of time during training camp negatively impacted his conditioning. Garcia didn’t discuss that as a problem, but he should have. It was a huge problem for Canelo. He was turning red after the first minute of each round, and then doing nothing for the last 2 minutes. From round 3 to 12, Canelo was incapable of fighting hard for more than 1 minute. The scoring by the judges seemed to have been done based on the first minute of each round. You can argue the judges were so impressed with what Canelo did in the first minute of the rounds, they would ignore the last 2 minutes. The last two-thirds of each round saw Golovkin peppering a helpless and tired looking Canelo with shots while he was trapped against the ropes. Canelo didn’t have the arm length to hit Golovkin when he was fighting on the outside nor did he have the foot speed to get to him.
Danny Garcia says he wasn’t mad at the judges scoring it a 12 round draw. However, when you look at the judge that scored the fight 114-114, he gave round 7 to Canelo. That was a round in which Golovkin was teeing off on Canelo the entire round. The other 2 judges had Golovkin winning round 7. Even the judge that scored the fight to Canelo 10 rounds to 2 had Golovkin winning the 7th. Looking at round 7 again, it’s unclear what the judge saw in Canelo to give him the round. It was all Golovkin in that round.
”They [GGG’s trainer Abel Sanchez] has got to teach him to move his head a little bit,” said Garcia. ”He says he fights with a Mexican style. I don’t think that’s a Mexican style. I had him winning, but he definitely took some punishment in his last 3 fights. I’d like to see how he moves on from his last 3 fights,” Garcia said.
Golovkin needs to definitely improve his defense, but I think more importantly, the judges need to improve with their ability to score fights. The rematch can’t have the same scoring as the first fight without alarming the public. Too many boxing fans saw the Canelo-GGG fight, and they were very upset with the outcome. It just happened that the results prevented the A-side fighter, Canelo, from losing the fight. When you have an A-side fighter that is involved in a controversial decision, it often swings their way to help them. In boxing, the B-side fighters are frequently the ones that are on the receiving end of a controversial decision. In the case of the Canelo-GGG fight, Golovkin is the one that got jobbed.
Danny Garcia may not have issues with the scoring from the judges for the Canelo-GGG fight, but the fans certainly did. Garcia nitpicking on Golovkin for him taking too many shots, but then he says nothing about a judge that scores he fight 10 rounds to 2 in favor of Canelo or the judge that scored it 114-114. Garcia has no problem with those scores, but the boxing public does have a problem. Since they’re the ones that pay to see fights, it’s kind of important that the judges get their act together for the highly publicized Canelo vs. Golovkin rematch. Garcia can be happy with the 12 round draw from the first Golovkin-Canelo fight he wants, but the fans WEREN’T happy, and it was a black eye for the sport.
It might not be sinking in with Garcia how controversial fight results could impact the fan interest in his own fights, but he needs to sit and think about it. When fans stop trusting the results from boxing events, then the fans will drift away and start following other sports. Garcia will be impacted by the fans moving away. He might not understand how a controversial decision is a bad thing for himself, but he needs to think about it. A lot of people saw the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight, and many of them felt that it was a rip off decision. There were already a lot of angry boxing fans that felt ripped off after ordering Canelo’s previous fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. earlier this year in May. That fight didn’t have a controversial ending like the Canelo and Triple G fight. The fight was still a black-eye for boxing due to the lack of 2-way action.
Golden Boy sold the Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. fight as being a war between Mexican sluggers. It didn’t turn out that way. It ended up being a mismatch with Canelo beating up against a very thin, weak and unmotivated looking Chavez Jr. That fight was sold on HBO PPV, and the fans were not pleased with having to pay their hard-earned money to see a horrible fight. It was bad luck that Canelo’s next fight against Golovkin also ended badly. The fight wasn’t thrilling to watch either due to Canelo fighting in a defensive manner in most rounds by staying on the ropes, and moving a lot.