By Sean Jones: Manager Jose ‘Chepo’ Reynoso believes his fighter former 2 division world champion Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez is poised to enjoy the best year of his 11-year pro career in 2018, starting with his rematch with IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin on May 5.
The Canelo-Golovkin fight ended in a 12 round draw last September. The scores for the fight were as follows: 118-110 for Canelo, 115-113 for Golovkin, and 114-114.
Chepo believes that Canelo deserved a win in his fight with Golovkin on September 16 last year, but he also understands that GGG’s people believe they deserved the win as well. Everything will be decided in the rematch that takes place in the next 4 months. he 27-year-old Canelo (49-1-2, 34 KOs) felt he needed 8 months off from his hard fight with Golovkin last September on HBO PPV, so he’s been resting up all this time.
”I think we will see the best of Canelo,” said Chepo to ESPN Deportes. ”They said that GGG was going to knock him out and that they were going to retire him, but that did not happen and on the contrary, we believe that 2018 will be very good for him, the best so far.”
Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) didn’t appear to even try to knockout Canelo. If there’s a reason why there wasn’t a knockout by either fighter, it’s more to do with the way the contest was tactical chess match. Canelo failed to fight with his normal fighting style of pressuring. We saw Canelo using frequent movement along the ropes for the first time in his career. Canelo had never done that before. It made it difficult for Golovkin to land his power shots because Canelo was not staying in one place for any length of time.
Golovkin didn’t help himself by staying on the outside and jabbing Canelo. It worked for Golovkin to take away almost entirely Canelo’s counter punching opportunities. But with the 2 of the judges being more influenced by the cleaner landing shots that Canelo was landing, it put Golovkin in a position where it didn’t matter that he was seemingly in control of the fight through most of the contest. Those 2 judges weren’t looking at who was controlling he rounds. They seemed more influenced in scoring rounds to Canelo based on him landing 2 or 3 hard shots, while ignoring all the head-snapping jabs that Golovkin was landing. It didn’t appear that Canelo won the fight in the eyes of the vast majority of the boxing fans, but it didn’t matter. The 2 judges that liked what they were seeing from Canelo meant that the fight wasn’t going to be scored in Golovkin’s favor.
Canelo’s promoters Golden Boy Promotions are still in negotiations with Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler. Golden Boy president Eric Gomez had said 2 weeks that he felt he could have the fight done possibly by Christmas. That hasn’t happened, but hopefully Gomez can get the fight finalized in the next week if not this week.
“At the moment there is nothing finished, we know that the talks for the tie-break between GGG and Saul are still going on, there is nothing firm,” said Chepo. “So we are on standby. We cannot say much until we can talk to Golden Boy. There’s little to comment for now,” said Reynoso.
It’s in Canelo’s best interest to get the rematch with Golovkin done. If Canelo moves on without facing Golovkin in the rematch, then it’ll be seen as a ducking move by him and his promoters to avoid a loss.
Many of the boxing fans already believe that Canelo was saved from a loss by the Nevada judges. They feel that Golovkin was robbed of victory that he deserved. If Canelo can’t fight Golovkin again to prove that he’s the better fighter, then a lot of fans are going to think he’s running from GGG. If Canelo decides to fight Golovkin 2 or 3 years, it’ll just look like he waited until he got old before fighting him in the rematch. There are already a lot of fans that think Canelo and Golden Boy intentionally waited 2 years until Golovkin was older at 35-years-old rather than taking him on when he was 33, and looking invincible. Golovkin might be the same fighter he was 2 years ago. It’s impossible to know for sure though, because Canelo chose not to fight Golovkin in 2015, when he was pushing hard to make that fight.
2018 is going to be a big year for Canelo. If he can beat Golovkin and do it without controversy, then that’ll be a tremendous victory for him. However, Canelo will still need to come up with another big win in 2018 for it to be the best year of his career. Just beating Golovkin alone won’t be enough, as the probability of a controversial decision favoring the more popular A-side fighter Canelo will be high. Even if Canelo wins without controversy, many fans will think he only won because of Triple G’s age. If the shoe was on the other foot and one of the top fighter years from now waits until Canelo is 35-years-old before fighting him, they’re going to be perceived in the same way he is right now.
They’re going to be seen by fans as having waited until Canelo had lost a few steps before agreeing to fight him. That’s why it’s never good for a guy to wait before taking on a tough talent. In boxing, fighters can avoid the best. In other sports like the NFL or NBA, you can’t decide to avoid another team because they’re playing too well. You’ve got to face them, or you forfeit.
As far as the rest of 2018 goes, Canelo will need to top the year off by beating the likes of WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders or preferably Daniel Jacobs or Jermall Charlo. Those 2 guys are arguably better fighters than Saunders, but they’re also a lot more dangerous for the 5’8” Canelo. They’re taller, faster, naturally bigger and more powerful. Saunders can’t punch, which it’s likely Canelo will go after him in his second fight of 2018 rather than the more dangerous Charlo or Jacobs. Canelo would only need to worry about being out-boxed by Saunders rather than knocked out. The only reason Golovkin would want to fight Saunders is to win his WBO title. If not for that, Golovkin would likely fight Jacobs or Charlo, because those are fights the boxing public wants to see. Fans in the U.S have little interest in seeing Golovkin fight defensive fighter like Saunders, because it’s going to be an ugly fight involving a lot of running by the British fighter.