By Sean Jones: Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez can expect to be pressured a lot more in the rematch with middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) on May 5th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Golovkin says he’s going to apply nonstop pressure from the 1st round against Canelo, and not wait until the 3rd round before he starts putting major heat on the stamina-plagued 27-year-old Mexican star.
Golden Boy Promotions star Canelo (49-1-2, 34 KOs) will be facing middleweight champion Golovkin in a rematch on May 5 on HBO pay-per-view at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Their previous fight on September 16th last year was scored a 12 round draw. However, the boxing fans saw Golovkin as the winner, and they ridiculed the scoring by 2 of the judges that worked that fight, especially the judge that scored it 10 rounds to 2 in favor of Canelo. That score made a lot of fans upset.
Golovkin states that he’s not worried about going back to Las Vegas to fight Canelo a second. GGG feels that the boxing fans will know who won the fight regardless of how the judges score the fight. Like in their first fight last September, Golovkin says the boxing public will know who really won the fight. Canelo and Golovkin fought
“It’s not a problem for me because I’m a boxer,” Golovkin said to Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports News about him coming back to Las Vegas to face Canelo at the T-Mobile Arena on May 5th. “I feel very comfortable. I know my job. I know people that watch this fight, everybody knows who win. It’s not only judges. I feel very comfortable. I have no problems coming back to Vegas,” Golovkin said.
Golovkin is correct when he says the boxing fans will know who won the fight afterwards. However, it’s still important for Golovkin to make sure he doesn’t let the judges take the win away from him. Canelo has walked away from other fighters without giving them rematches in the past after getting controversial 12 round decision wins over Erislandy Lara and Austin Trout. The fans have largely forgotten those fights and see those 2 fighters as guys that Canelo beat. Over time, the fans forget about robberies and/or aren’t aware that they ever took place in the first place. So, if Golovkin doesn’t want to be stuck with an underserved loss on his resume, he needs to make sure the 3 judges that are assigned for his May 5th rematch with Canelo can’t take away his win. The best Golovkin can do that is to knock Canelo out. If Golovkin can’t do that, then he might need to knock Canelo down 3 or 4 times in the fight so that it would put the judges in a position where they have no option but to give GGG the rounds.
”The first fight was a little bit new for me because he talked so much before the fight that he wants to show me Mexican style with more power, more everything,” said Golovkin. ”It was a little bit of a surprise for me that he (was running) in every round. Right now, I know the second fight will have more drama, more action because it’s the second fight. Now I’m ready for 100 percent action. It’s the same Canelo, you know?” Golovkin said.
Golovkin should be ready for Canelo to use just as much if not more movement as he did in the first fight. Canelo is talking about him wanting to KO Golovkin in the rematch, but he’s not likely to make a serious attempt at accomplishing that task. Canelo will probably put in a token effort in each round to land some big shots, and then spend the rest of the round moving around to keep Golovkin off him. Canelo will likely put in 30 seconds of actual fighting in every round, and then run for the last 2 ½ minutes to keep Golovkin off him. That’s what Canelo did last time. The judges that scored the rounds for him were basically scoring the rounds from what took place in the first 30 seconds, because there was nothing from Canelo after the first half minute. The 12th round was considered Canelo’s best round of the fight by a lot of the boxing fans. But in that round, Canelo let his hands go in the first 30 seconds, and then he used remainder trying to keep away from Golovkin. In the final seconds of the round, Canelo exchanged some punches with Golovkin, but that was a case where neither fighter got the better of one another.
“No, I don’t feel,” Golovkin said when asked if Canelo hits harder than his previous opponents during his career. “Like everybody, and not because I have a great chin. His punches more speed, not more power. For me, it’s OK. Not for me crazy. I don’t feel crazy power. I feel very comfortable,” Golovkin said.
Golovkin was the harder puncher of the two, and that won’t change in the rematch. Canelo punches hard, but he’s more of a junior middleweight in terms of power. With all the cardio that Canelo is doing in the Colorado Mountains in preparation for the GGG rematch, it’s likely that he’ll have less punching power than in the first fight. When a fighter works a lot on their cardio, they often lose punching power. Canelo has no choice though. If he doesn’t work hard on improving his conditioning for the May 5th rematch, he’ll gas out just like last time, and it’s going to be a lot worse for him in the second because of the increased pressure that Golovkin will putting on him. Canelo won’t be able to run to his left all night long to escape Golovkin’s pressure the way he did in the first fight. Golovkin is going to stay close to Canelo this time, and if he’s not in better condition cardio-wise than he was in the first fight, then he’s going to get beaten into the canvas within 6 rounds. As such, Canelo will be weaker for the second fight because of the extra cardio he’s forced to do. Something must give.
Canelo can’t stay the way he was in the first fight and expect to beat Golovkin. Coming into the fight in the 180s isn’t going to help Canelo. He’s got to lean down to the 170s if he doesn’t want to get outworked in every round. I think Canelo will get outworked anyway, but he’s got to at least try and improve his conditioning.
”Maybe the last 2 rounds were close and Canelo more activity,” Golovkin said about Canelo pushing the fight in the 11th and 12th rounds. ”This is fight. Now it’s more serious.”
The 11th and 12th rounds were closer in the first Canelo-GGG fight, but they were still rounds in which Canelo only fought in the first minute of the round, and then did nothing after that point. If you look at those 2 rounds again, Canelo was done after the first minute. He was spoiling by running from Golovkin, and he looked like he was afraid to stand and fight. Some boxing fans compare Canelo’s fighting style in those rounds to how Floyd Mayweather Jr. used to fight. I don’t agree. Mayweather stood his ground against his opponent. He’s didn’t fight hard for the first minute of each round and then dash away and stall out the last 2 minutes. That was not Mayweather-esque. Canelo fought like he wanted no part of Golovkin.
”Canelo is not standing in front of me, every time moving,” Golovkin said in explaining why he didn’t throw more body shots in the first fight. ”It’s hard for me.”
Golovkin can take away Canelo’s ability to run by staying closer to him like he did in the later rounds in their first fight. That’s the only way Golovkin will be able to throw body shots, because he’s not going to be able to get to Canelo’s midsection for his punches if he lets him run all night long. Canelo was following the Kell Brook blueprint last September. Brook ran from Golovkin most of the time in their fight in September 2016. Brook would stop occasionally and throw 3 or 4 punches to try and impress the judges, and then continue running. Canelo followed Brook’s blueprint to the tee, and he’s going to likely continue to follow it in the rematch on the 5th of May. Canelo must follow the Brook blueprint. He has no other choice, because he doesn’t have the stamina or the punch resistance to take Golovkin’s power shots for 12 rounds without folding. A knockout loss for Canelo would likely greatly hurt his popularity in the same way Manny Pacquiao’s popularity nosedived after his one-sided defeat to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2015. So, the best way for Canelo to avoid taking a clear loss is by running from Golovkin and not letting him wear him down and knock him out.
“This time more power, because I know Canelo,” Golovkin said in commenting on what he’ll do differently against Canelo in rematch on May 5. “I know him. I think the second fight is more interesting,” Golovkin said.
Golovkin will use more power on his shots, and pressure far more in the rematch with Canelo than he did in the first fight. Golovkin knows he needs to do that because he can’t count on the judges giving him the decision based on him out-boxing Canelo like he did the last time. In an ideal world, the judges would have given Golovkin the 12 round decision win last September against Canelo for him pressuring him and outworking him the entire fight, but it didn’t happen. That contest showed that for Golovkin to beat Canelo, he must give him a real thrashing to get a decision. A knockout is obviously the goal for Golovkin in the rematch.
