Loeffler: The fans want Canelo to fight Golovkin this time, not be defensive

By Boxing News - 02/23/2018 - Comments

Image: Loeffler: The fans want Canelo to fight Golovkin this time, not be defensive

By Jeff Aranow: Promoter Tom Loeffler says Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) was being too defensive against Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) last September, and wants him to make the fight thrilling this time. Loeffler says didn’t expect Alvarez to do use so much movement in the fight to try and get away from Triple G.

Loeffler wants the May 5th rematch to be a memorable one that the fans don’t forget. For that to happen, he needs Canelo and Golovkin to adapt and improve on their previous performances in the first contest. Canelo didn’t show a sense of urgency in the first 9 rounds to make a fight of it last time. For his part, Golovkin stayed on the outside for too long and looked like he timid about getting countered by Canelo’s speedy shots if he got too close to him. Neither fighter fought the right fight.

Both fighters need to make changes in their games if they want to win this time. Golovkin needs to forget about boxing and focus on knocking Canelo out. Canelo can’t be as defensive this time as he was in their on September 16th, because wasn’t fighting like a challenger trying to take Golovkin’s IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight titles. Canelo was fighting like someone who was sitting on a big lead and stalling out the rounds by moving.

Canelo wanted to go back to the T-Mobile in Las Vegas for the rematch, and he got his way. It’s not because of the money being better. It’s because Canelo wanted the rematch back at the T-Mobile. Things were good for Canelo in the first fight with Golovkin with the scoring of the judges. Canelo has no complaints as far as the scoring goes. Golovkin, Loeffler and trainer Abel Sanchez are the ones that was unhappy with the scoring.

Loeffler believes that the boxing fans are going to pressure Canelo to fight with Golovkin this time instead of being evasive and fighting on the outside along the ropes like did in the first fight.

Loeffler noticed that Canelo’s boxing fans booed him loudly after the GGG fight was over. Loeffler doesn’t want Canelo to spoil the rematch by running from Golovkin and causing the fans to boo even more. If Canelo stinks out the joint, the boxing public could stay away from purchasing a third fight between them. Loeffler wants Canelo to go out on his shield if he has to try and win and entertain the fans.

Both guys want to end the fight without the judges playing a part in the final outcome. Canelo is predicting a knockout win over Triple G, which could prove difficult. It’s hard to know if Canelo is serious about his plan of knocking GGG out. Canelo could might be just be talking to get boxing fans interested in purchasing the fight. It’s risky to try and knockout a fighter with a reputation of being a KO artist like Golovkin. You have to put your own chin on the line and be willing to take a lot of heavy shots. Canelo would have to be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to try and knockout Golovkin, and probably won’t want to do that once he starts getting hit hard. Canelo isn’t mentally geared to take the pain of heavy blows for him to knockout the good fighters. There’s no question that Canelo can knockout the fighters with limited power and weak chins. Canelo goes after those guys, but he didn’t want to do that against Golovkin.

Making bold predictions is the best way to get the fans interested in purchasing the fight. The first fight brought in 1.3 million buys on HBO PPV. Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya is saying the rematch will do 2 million buys. It might be hard for that prediction to come true. If the boxing public doesn’t trust the judges will score the fight fairly, then they could save their money instead of purchasing fight again on HBO PPV. Choosing Las Vegas again was a mistake possibly on Canelo’s part, because a lot of boxing fans believe that Golovkin won’t be given a fair shake in this venue due to the scoring from the last fight.

“The fans are going to put more pressure on Canelo to fight, not to be as defensive this time,” Loeffler said.

In recent years, Canelo has been immune to pressure from the boxing public about who he should fight. Just because the fans want Canelo to battle Golovkin in a war on May 5th doesn’t mean he’s going to comply with their wishes. It’s more likely that what the boxing fans want him to do in the Triple G fight will go in one ear and out the other with him doing whatever he pleases. Since it’s human nature for people to act in similar ways as they did in the past in any given situation, you can expect Canelo to use the same shoot and run style that he was using during the first fight with Gennady on September 16. The style worked well enough for Canelo to be given a draw by the judges with the scores 118-110 for Canelo, 114-114 and 115-113 for Golovkin.

The booing that was directed by fans towards Canelo after the fight with GGG isn’t going to make him decide how he wants to fight the rematch. Canelo will use whatever strategy that his trainers Eddy and Chepo Reynoso put together for him. If things aren’t working out like they weren’t last time he fought Golovkin, then Canelo will come on strong in the later rounds to try and knock him out. If gets to that point, then Canelo is going to be far behind in the fight, which appeared to be in the first fight when he started to attack more beginning in the 10th round. The judges liked Canelo showing aggression they gave him all the final rounds.

It didn’t look like Canelo won those rounds, but the judges gave them to him anyway. If that’s all it takes for Canelo to win rounds, then he’ll need to start earlier this time in fighting Golovkin and not moving away from him continuously along the ropes. Canelo was fleeing to the left in circles during each round. He looked tired, scared and unable to keep Golovkin off of him.

To give Canelo rounds after the 2nd round would be very generous to him, as he wasn’t landing enough of his shots. It was mostly defensive moves on Canelo’s part designed to survive to fight another day.

“Triple G said he’s going to make it an even more dominating performance than the first time,” Loeffler said about the Canelo-GGG rematch. “A lot of people told me they weren’t OK with the draw, especially Triple G and Abel [Sanchez]. They were very disappointed in the scorecards, at least 2 of the scorecards. Harold Lederman scored it 8 rounds to 4. That’s how we had it on Triple G’s side,” Loeffler said.

The only way Golovkin can make it more dominating than the first fight is if he knocks Canelo out. Golovkin did as much as any fighter could to earn a win, but 2 of the judges that worked that fight didn’t recognize his efforts. They were looking elsewhere. Golovkin would have needed a knockout to win that fight, and he wasn’t fighting at the right distance from Canelo to make that happen. Golovkin was too far outside to knock Canelo out, and the Mexican star took advantage of that by running to his left to escape the pressure the entire fight. Canelo made sure he landed a few shots to impress the judges in many of the rounds. Golovkin’s approach to winning the fight was to land jabs and connect with more power shots.

Golovkin should think knockout all the way, and forget about trying to school Canelo the way Floyd Mayweather Jr. did in his win over him in 2013. The way that 2 of the judges scored the fight, Mayweather might have come up short and lost to Canelo. Those judges seemed to be only concentrating on Canelo landing 1 or 2 hard shots, and that was seemingly all they were looking at in scoring the rounds. Mayweather would have hard a very hard time winning the fight against Canelo if the judges were only concentrating on scoring the rounds based on a small number of hard shots rather than 30 jabs to the head Mayweather was landing round after round.

”Nobody expected Canelo to be as elusive and defensive as he fought,” Loeffler said. ”Abel Sanchez had a great joke. ‘Canelo entered the ring as a Mexican and left as Floyd [Mayweather]. With this style, he was very defensive. I’ve never seen Canelo get booed the way he did in front of his fans. 60 percent of the fans were there supporting Canelo. I don’t know if that influenced the judges’ cards,” Loeffler said.

Loeffler should have done his homework and saw that Canelo fights defensively when he’s afraid or when he’s getting hit too much. In Canelo’s fights with Mayweather and Austin Trout, he boxed them insead of using his power to slug. Canelo was criticized heavily for failing to use his size and power advantage over Mayweather. Canelo thought he could beat Mayweather by being slick like him. It didn’t work, but he tried anyway. Like in the Golovkin fight, Canelo changed his game plan in the 10th round by electing to come forward to throw power shots.

Canelo and his trainers will talk about wanting to get a knockout of Golovkin, but when he gets inside the ring, it’s going to be the same thing as in the first fight. Canelo will stay along the ropes, jabbing, throwing pot shots, and then moving to his left to escape the pressure.

”The 2nd time around, I know Canelo, Eddy Reynoso and Chepo Reynoso, they’re going to make adjustments,” Loeffler said. ”Triple G and Abel Sanchez are going to make adjustments on their side, and I think we’re going to see an even more exiting fight on Cinco de Mayo,” Loeffler said.