By Allan Fox: Trainer Abel Sanchez wants Mexican star Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez to stand and fight Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin more in their rematch [if it happens] on May 5 instead of fighting like Erislandy Lara by running for most of the fight.
Lara is the WBA junior middleweight champion, who has a reputation for using a lot of movement in his fights. Lara’s movement makes him an unpopular fighter to some boxing fans, who complain that he’s boring to watch with his survival oriented fighting style. Sanchez feels that Canelo was fighting a lot like Lara in just trying to survive without getting knocked out by Golovkin.
Like a lot of people that witnessed the previous Canelo-GGG fight last September, Sanchez thinks Canelo ran too much and spoiled the fight by not standing long enough to make a fight of it. Canelo (49-1-2, 34 KOs) came into the Golovkin fight with the strategy of using movement to keep from being a stationary target for Golovkin’s powerful punches. The fight was scored a 12 round draw, but it was a controversial decision, as Sanchez points out. The boxing fans felt that Canelo was fighting too defensively after round 3, and just trying to survive instead of winning the fight.
Sanchez would be smart to have Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) prepared for Canelo to use the same type of movement in the rematch next May, because he doesn’t have stamina to fight the Kazakhstan knockout artist in a face-paced fight. Canelo isn’t built for fighting at a fast pace. He’s built for fighting in spurts and resting. Canelo will need to move a lot for him to get his required rest breaks that his body needs for him to keep melting down into a state of sheer exhaustion.
“I just hope Canelo doesn’t make it to where he fights like [Erislandy] Lara did,” said Sanchez. “I hope Canelo makes it a fight of it so us fans will enjoy a better fight than the last time. I think Golovkin did what he needed to do, cutting the ring, trying to do things, but he had a running target to hit. You can only force him so much,” said Sanchez.
Golovkin didn’t force the action as much as he could have. If GGG had stayed close to Canelo, he would have prevented him from being able to move away. Canelo isn’t that good of a mover. Just watching the fight, Canelo was looking heavy on his feet in moving along the ropes. If Golovkin really wanted to keep Canelo from getting away, he could have, but it would have required that he stay close to him by fighting on the inside or medium range. Canelo wouldn’t have been able to get away from Golovkin, and the fight would have played out a lot differently. One of the 2 fighters would have been beaten down if the fight had been fought in close.
If Sanchez wants to keep Canelo from being able to run in the rematch, he’s going to need to train Golovkin to stay next to him and fight him in the so-called ‘Mexican style’ that he likes to talk about. Golovkin will need to be prepared for other Canelo tactics if he does fight him in a close-range war. Canelo might make it ugly by using nonstop holding to limit the shots that Golovkin can land in close range. For any fighter that chooses to mix it up on the inside, they must be prepared for their opponents to use a lot of grabbing and holding. Canelo usually doesn’t hold, but he also never used as much movement as he did the last time he fought Golovkin. No one predicted that Canelo would move the way he did against Golovkin. Sanchez needs to be prepared for Canelo to try his next tactic if Golovkin takes the fight to the inside, because he won’t be able to fight him hard for 3 minutes of each round.
Canelo doesn’t have the stamina to fight for 180 seconds of each round. He’s going to have to do something to slow Golovkin down, and what we haven’t seen from Canelo yet is holding and mauling. It’s very likely that Canelo will use former light heavyweight champion Andre Ward as his role model in how he’ll fight GGG. That means we’ll see a great deal of holding and wrestling from Canelo. If Golovkin can’t deal with the wrestling, and if the referee doesn’t do his job by taking points away from the popular Golden Boy star, we’ll see the fight turn into an ugly grappling match. Hopefully, Canelo doesn’t fight that way, because it’ll be terrible for the paying boxing fans that order the Canelo-Golovkin rematch on HBO PPV.
“Canelo fought a great fight not to get knocked out,” said Sanchez. ”He had great legs, he moved well, he fought at times. I just don’t think he did enough to please us fans. That’s not the type of fight I want to see from him again. Golovkin pressed as much as he could press. I thought he won 8 to 4, and most people thought he won 8 to 4, 9 to 3, but it takes 2 to make an interesting fight. Ray Leonard beat Marvin Hagler, but he didn’t run from him like that. So, it was difficult to anticipate what Canelo going o do, but we still won, but Canelo didn’t do what he promised. He fought the best fight he could fight not to get knocked out, but he didn’t do enough to win,” said Sanchez.
Canelo fought the only fight he could against Golovkin. Canelo couldn’t go all out and fight Golovkin’s type of fight, because he lacks the frame, conditioning and the overall fighter’s mind set to compete in that kind of fight. Canelo has always been a guy that only fights in spurts. He doesn’t fight that way by design. Canelo is forced to fight in spurts because he doesn’t have the ability to throw a lot of punches without tiring. That’s always been Canelo’s flaw in his game, and it’s not going to ever change. So instead of Canelo letting Golovkin wear him down and knock him out, he ran when he would get tired, which unfortunately was 2 of minutes of every round. Canelo was always good for the 1st minute of each round, but he was done after that.
”I haven’t spoken to anyone that thought Canelo won,” said Sanchez. ”[Judge] Adelaide Byrd had her scorecard filled before she got to the arena. Ray didn’t run like Canelo did. I’m going to call it running, because that’s what it was. He stood at times to fight, but he didn’t stand enough. In the last couple of rounds, he did a little more standing. Hopefully that’s the kind of fight he fights in the next one. If he does, somebody is going to get hit, whether that’s Canelo or Golovkin. Let’s see who can take a punch better,” said Sanchez.
Sugar Ray Leonard didn’t move a lot when he beat middleweight champion Marvin Hagler by a controversial 12 round split decision in April 1987, but that was because he was older at that point in his fight and he’d never been a runner to begin with. Leonard had much better reflexes to avoid punches compared to Canelo. Leonard could move his upper body to avoid shots better than Canelo, who is too heavy to avoid getting hit to the body. What Canelo does to avoid getting hit to the body is he exposes his back to his opponents, and then put makes them look like they’re hitting him in the back. Leonard was light on his feet and he avoid head and body shots better than Canelo.
”He never hit Canelo. He didn’t hit Canelo,” said Sanchez in talking about the first Canelo vs. Golovkin fight last September. ”Canelo never stood enough to get hit. Canelo did hit Golovkin with a very good uppercut in the 4th or 5th round. That didn’t win the fight,” said Sanchez.
Golovkin did hit Canelo, but he didn’t hit him with a lot of hard head shots in the fight. Canelo was moving his head to avoid Golovkin’s power shots. However, Canelo couldn’t get out of the way of Golovkin’s jabs. There were too many jabs for Canelo to avoid, so he ended up eating them.
If Canelo and Golovkin stand and trade in a war, hopefully we don’t see the Golden Boy Promotions star turning his back like he did in the first fight when he gets hit to the body. Sanchez points out that Canelo was turning away and exposing his back when Golovkin hit him with body shots, and this led to him getting warned by the referee Kenny Bayless.
