By Jeff Aranow: Gennady Golovkin views Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s mega-fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (50-2-1, 32 KOs) as a “business fight”, and not a particularly fair one for Chavez Jr. Golovkin feels that Chavez Jr. will be too weak to put much of a fight after the 2nd round due to the fight taking place at a catch-weight of 164 ½ pounds.
That’s the weight limit that Canelo and his promoters at Golden Boy insisted on for the May 6th fight. Golovkin thinks that Chavez Jr. will be dead at the weight, and unable to do much after 2 rounds.
Golovkin compares Chavez Jr’s situation to Oscar De La Hoya’s when he fought Manny Pacquiao in 2008. De La Hoya agreed to melt down to 147 lbs. to fight Pacquiao, and the weight drop caused him to be far too weak to fight at a high level. De La Hoya had normally been fighting at 154 before agreeing to come down in weight to 147.
Golovkin doesn’t think that Chavez Jr. will be able to do much after coming down to 164. Chavez Jr. has failed to make the 168 lb. limit in 3 of his fights in the last four years. A lot was made about Chavez Jr. making the 168lb limit for his last fight against Dominik Britsch last December. What isn’t said is how bad Chavez Jr. looked in making that weight. He looked like a human skeleton with a large head on a stick body. Chavez Jr. looked weak, slow and lethargic in the fight that night. He won the fight, but you can argue only because his opponent Britsch fought worse than he did.
“He’ll be OK for maybe two to three rounds and then it’s going to take too much out of him … he’ll be like Oscar De La Hoya [in his final bout] against Manny Pacquiao,” said Golovkin about Chavez Jr. to the latimes.com. ”After two rounds, he’s finished – no speed, no power. Oscar said, ‘I’m finished, I can’t,’ in his corner. Manny had more power, fitness, more speed,” said Golovkin
Chavez Jr. has already dropped weight to get down to a reported 181 pounds, and he looks very slender at that weight. Chavez Jr. doesn’t look like the strong 180lb fighter years ago. He looks like someone that has stripped muscle to get to 180. Chavez J. has gotten bigger since 2012, and he’s not the same fighter that was able to drain down to middleweight. Chavez Jr. now looks more like a light heavyweight when he’s not doing a lot of work to trim down.
Chavez Jr’s body does not look like it’s suited for him to fight at super middleweight any longer. Being told that he needs to melt down to 164.5lbs for the catch-weight to face Canelo, I think it’s going to leave Chavez Jr. really weak. He’ll probably make the weight in order to avoid the stiff $1 million per pound weight penalty, but there’s a good chance that he’ll be too weak to fight at a high level on the night of the fight with Canelo. That’s good news for Canelo and Golden Boy Promotions, but not for Chavez Jr.
“You’ll see: The 164 is too much for Chavez. And Canelo is a big guy. This weight is much better for him,” said Golovkin.
It would be surprising if Chavez Jr. doesn’t wind up weight drained for the Canelo fight. Asking Chavez Jr. to get down to 164.5 I probably asking too much from him. He’s around 180 now, but he has the look of a fighter that lost a lot of muscle, and doesn’t appear strong. If Chavez Jr. is thin and weak for the Canelo fight, then he’s going to have very little chance of beating him. That’s probably good news for Golovkin if Canelo easily beats Chavez Jr., because it would take the argument for Golden Boy matching them back together again. De La Hoya says that if the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight is a close one, he’ll put them back in together in a rematch in September. If the fight turns out to be a mismatch, it’ll be a good test to see if De La Hoya will still match them against each other again or not.
Golovkin says the Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. is “business fight.” That’s the same opinion that a lot of boxing fans have of the match. There’s been a lot of criticism of Golden Boy’s decision to match Canelo against a faded fighter like Chavez Jr., because he’s done nothing with his career in the last five years since losing to Sergio Martinez. Chavez Jr. didn’t retire after the loss to Martinez, but the defeat seems to have taken the air out of what was once a promising boxing career. The critics point out that De La Hoya is making a big deal out of the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight, painting a picture of the best fighting the best.
That’s not what the fight is. It’s the best fighting one of the best from five years ago. In that respect, it’s a similar type of match-up that we’ve seen from the past from Golden Boy in putting Canelo in with fighters that are no longer top of the rung. We saw that with Canelo being matched against James Kirkland, Alfredo Angulo, Shane Mosley and Kermit Cintron. All were good fighters at one time, but no longer good by the time Canelo fought them.
Golovkin didn’t say how much he thinks Canelo will rehydrate to, but there are some that think that he’ll be the heavier guy on the night. Draining down doesn’t seem to hurt Canelo. He’s able to take a lot of weight off, and then it back on without it weakening him dramatically like it does other fighters. It could be due to Canelo’s age. He’s only 26-years-old, and he’s still very young.
Golovkin is getting the better preparation for his fight against Canelo than he is for him. Chavez Jr. is not a fighter that is likely going to be able to do much to prepare Canelo in any real way for what he’ll be dealing with when he gets inside the ring with GGG. The only thing that Chavez Jr. has going for him is his size, and even that might not be there due to him having to make the 164.5lb catch-weight for the fight. Fighting a big slow fighter like Chavez Jr. isn’t going to do much ton help Canelo fight Golovkin. Canelo needs to be focusing on fighting better fighters at this point in his career, because he seems to have backed off entirely from fighting the prime fighters. Canelo’s boxing fans point out that he fought Miguel Cotto in 2015, but that fighter is older guy at 36 and very small at just 5’7″. What’s going to happen to Canelo when he has to fight bigger fighters with more power, talent and speed like Golovkin, Jacobs and Jermall Charlo?