By Sean Jones: Trainer Abel Sanchez had Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez boiling over in a rage last Tuesday night at the Los Angeles fan event after he merely told the red-headed star not to run from IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin in their rematch on May 5 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Sanchez was easily the best thing about the Los Angeles fan event last night. Without Sanchez there to save the day with his pointed comments about Canelo, the event would have been a disaster. Golovkin had little to say, and his promoter Tom Loeffler seemed to lack any real enthusiasm. Even Oscar De La Hoya looked bored. Sanchez stood out as the star of the event. Sanchez did a very good job of dissecting Canelo’s No.1 flaw, his running, and point it out to the crowd.
Sanchez was trying to be helpful to Canelo and his promoter Oscar De La Hoya in giving them tips to help sell future Canelo-GGG fights. The No.1 tip Sanchez had for Canelo was for him to stop running like he did in the first Triple G fight on September 16. Sanchez said De La Hoya can’t keep lying to the boxing fans about how the Canelo-Golovkin fights are going to be exciting affairs if his fighter Canelo is going to run the whole time. Sanchez said that Canelo is a runner, and he’ll get knocked out if he deviates from that survival mode in the rematch on the 5th of May. Sanchez was daring Canelo not to run at the LA fan day, and he didn’t like it.
Canelo was sporting his big Elvis Presley hairstyle at the press conference last night, and his theme was that he’s going to make sure he knocks Golovkin out this time. His trainer Chepo Reynoso was saying the same stuff. The two of them were on the same page more or less.
Here’s what took place in the exchange between Canelo and Sanchez:
Sanchez: “I sure hope so, because the fans deserve the type of fight they expected the first time. They deserve the kind of fight he was talking about the first time, that he keeps talking about now and Oscar (De La Hoya) is saying now. As a promoter, I know he wants to sell a fight that the people are going to pay for and want to see again. The first fight is not one he can sell too many times and lie to these people like he did the first time.”
Canelo: “First of all, you also lied to your fans because you also said he would knock me out under 6 rounds. What happened there?
Sanchez: “It’s impossible to knock somebody out when they fight the fight not to get knocked out. When you run, you run and you run, it’s impossible to catch anybody.”
Canelo: “You promised your fans he would knock me out.”
Sanchez: “You promised also you would fight the fight and knock Golovkin out in 10 rounds, and you didn’t. Don’t run.”
I don’t know if it’s going to work for Sanchez to shame Canelo into fighting hard and standing his ground against Golovkin in the rematch, because I don’t think he’s beyond being shammed. Canelo must realize that he can’t beat Golovkin by fighting him, so he’s going to use his hit and run style to try and win a close/controversial decision. The judges gave Canelo a 12 round draw last time. That fight was in Las Vegas. The second fight will be in that city as well after Canelo requested the fight take place there. If Canelo can have the same kind of judging as last time, he might get a win this time, albeit a deeply controversial decision victory.
“I hope Canelo was able to see a transmission specialist for the rematch because in the first fight he was stuck in reverse,” Sanchez said. “All I know is that after the first fight the fans were not booing Gennady Golovkin. The rematch took long to make because Canelo takes long to heal and had long memories of the first fight,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez is right about the boxing public not likely wanting to purchase the Canelo-GGG fight too many more times if their second fight is anything like the first one. That wasn’t because of Golovkin the first fight failed to live up to the huge expectations. It was because Canelo fought like a rabbit in moving so much, and fighting off the ropes defensively. You can’t sell a fight like that too many times, mostly because the boxing fans aren’t interested in seeing defensive fights. They want to see action and drama, not running.
Canelo needs to be cognizant of that. It might be too late for the second fight to bring in the huge numbers as the first one, because the boxing fans have already seen how dull the first fight was. Those fans are likely going to be reluctant to purchase a second fight. That’s why Golden Boy Promotions made a mistake of not including a press tour for the Canelo vs. Golovkin 2 rematch, because they need to reach new fans that didn’t see the first fight. I don’t think Golden Boy can count on the fans that saw the previous fight to want to purchase the rematch in the same numbers. The fight was too boring, and the outcome of the Canelo-GGG fight ended in controversy.
Canelo appeared to lose the fight but he was given a draw. When you have the star fighter Canelo appear to lose and be given a 12 round draw. It looked REALLY bad. That doesn’t help PPV sales when a fighter is given arguably undeserving draw. The outcome of the fight had a professional wrestling aspect to it where the star loses but it ends in tie where he doesn’t lose. It looked bad. It would have been better if the judges had given Golovkin the victory, because there would be more boxing fans interested in seeing the rematch with a revenge angle being used to market the fight. Instead of that situation, we have Golovkin being viewed by many boxing fans as having been robbed of a win against a popular fighter Canelo, whose promoters are the lead promoters for the card. It’s a much harder to market the second Canelo vs. Golovkin 2 fight under those circumstances. That’s why I see the second Canelo and Golovkin fight bringing in far less money than the first. It’s the same situation as the Andre Ward vs. Sergey Kovalev fight. The first fight Ward-Kovalev ended in controversy in 2016 with Ward being given a 12 round decision, even though he appeared to lose the contest in the eyes of many in the boxing public. Subsequently, the Ward vs. Kovalev 2, rematch brought in fewer PPV buys on HBO.
I believe if the judges had scored the fight for Kovalev, as the fans overwhelmingly saw it, then the rematch would have generated a lot more PPV buys than it did. The moral to the story is the boxing fans lose faith when they see controversial decisions. That’s why it’s important for the judges to get it right the first time by giving it to the clear winner, not the loser or by them scoring the fights a draw. Boxing needs to get rid of draws, because I think that hurts the sport. Fans don’t like to pay their hard-earned money to see a fight that ends in a tie, particularly when there’s a clear winner.