By Dan Ambrose: Nacho Beristain, the trainer for Juan Manuel Marquez and many other excellent Mexican fighters, thinks it’s a mistake for Golden Boy Promotions to be letting their fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez face Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in a fight this year.
Beristain doesn’t think that the 25-year-old Canelo is ready to fight someone as good as Golovkin right now, and he thinks that if the fight happens, Golovkin would destroy Canelo and possibly send him into retirement.
Beristain doesn’t say why he thinks that Golovkin would force Canelo to retire, but it’s possible that the beating that he gives the red-headed fighter might be too much for him to be able to resume his career after the fight. Beristain doesn’t think Canelo has the chin, the defensive skills, or the ability to handle the gifted Kazakhstan fighter Golovkin.
“My opinion is they [Golden Boy Promotions] shouldn’t make that fight,” Beristan said to Fighthub. “The Kazakh [Golovkin] is a much better fighter than Canelo. His [Golovkin] style is less spectacular than Canelo, but he is better. He has different tactical habits than Canelo, I think. He could destroy in one way or another the career of Canelo. [He is] perhaps the biggest selling fighter right now. He can be better and it would be important for Mexican boxing, but I think the Kazakh could even retire him from boxing,” Beristain said.
I can definitely see Golovkin destroying Canelo and beating him by a brutal knockout. That to me is almost a given. I don’t know about Golovkin sending Canelo into retirement. It would have to be a real methodical beating for that kind of thing to happen, and I can’t see Canelo staying on his feet long enough to take that kind of a beating. He’ll either hit the deck or the fight will be stopped by a referee stepping in to stop Golovkin from bludgeoning Canelo into submission.
Beristain may get his wish with Canelo not fighting Golovkin later this year. While a fight between Canelo and Golovkin is supposed to take place in late 2016, possibly in September, it doesn’t mean that it will happen. Canelo could very well drag his heals when it comes to the negotiations with Golovkin’s promoters at K2 Promotions by making unreasonable demands, such as asking for a catch-weight of 155lbs to drain Golovkin, and then asking for a much bigger split of the purse.
If it becomes a fight where Golovkin is going to be expected to be both weakened and shortchanged in terms of the money, then it’s quite possible that he and his promoters at K2 will walk away from the negotiations. Canelo could then say ‘I tried, but they didn’t want to agree to the fight.’ Canelo’s fans wouldn’t blame him, and he would be able to go his separate way and continue to fight guys like James Kirkland and Alfredo Angulo.
I’m sure that Canelo and Golden Boy would eventually look Golovkin up in the future, when he’s older and possibly nearing 40 and not the same fighter he is right now. Golovkin is 33 right now. If Canelo and Golden Boy weight another five years or so before fighting him, Golovkin will be 38 and likely over-the-hill enough for Canelo to finally beat him. It’s like Canelo not fighting Miguel Cotto until he was 35-years-old. We didn’t see Canelo fighting Cotto five years ago when he was only 30, and clearly a better fighter than he is now.
“He [Canelo] doesn’t have the proper skills. Technically speaking the Kazakh is better,” Beristain said. “He’s a bigger puncher, and he has a better chin. In those departments, he is better than the Mexican. For me and my way of seeing boxing, I don’t think he [Canelo] won [against Miguel Cotto]. There we saw the influence of a lot of people for him [Canelo] to win his fight with Cotto. With the Kazakh it would be different, because that defensive technique he [Canelo] will not be sufficient to be standing in distance in front of the Kazakh for 12 rounds,” Beristain said.
I think it’s pretty important for Golovkin to KO Canelo if he doesn’t want to wind up losing a controversial decision, because I don’t think he would be given a decision over a really popular fighter like Canelo. All you have to do is look at weird one-sided scores for Canelo’s close fights against guys like Austin Trout and Miguel Cotto to figure that it could be next to impossible for Golovkin to win a decision against Canelo unless he knocks him down multiple times to the point where a judge couldn’t possibly mess up the decision and give the wrong guy the win.
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