By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions flagship star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs) might as well give up on the idea of hi being able to knockout IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs), because it WILL NOT be happening, says Golovkin’s longtime trainer Abel Sanchez. He just wants Canelo to know that ahead of time so he won’t waste too much time hoping he can be the first fighter to put a dent in Triple G’s chin when the two of them fight each other on September 16.
(Photo Courtesy HBO/Ed Mulholland)
Sanchez’s reasons for believing that the younger 26-year-old Canelo will fail at knocking out Golovkin is because the Kazakhstan fighter had 400 amateur fights and 37 fights as a pro, and no one has ever hurt him or even knocked him down. As Sanchez pointed out this week, Canelo couldn’t knock Miguel Cotto and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. That means won’t be able to do the job when he gets inside the ring with GGG.
“If you could not hurt Chavez and Cotto, you will not be able to hurt Gennady Golovkin, who has 400 fights, and they’ve never hurt him,” said Abel Sanchez to ESPN Deportes. ”It’s good they think they can stop him because that means he’ll have the balls to stop and fight him,” said Sanchez.
For Canelo to try and hurt Golovkin, he’s going to need to stop and punch with him. That’s a dangerous thing to do. Canelo might be able to get away with punching with Golovkin for a short period of time, but if he does it long term, he’s going to get hurt.
Canelo is going to probably try and box Triple G on September 16 instead of brawl with him. It depends though. Canelo is one of those type of fighters that has a temper, and when he get hit, he tries to come back immediately to payback his opponents with power shots. Canelo is drunk on success right now because in part he’s been matched against so many old, flawed and small fighters. Canelo has had a lot of punching bag put in the ring with him by his promoters at Golden Boy. This has enabled Canelo to tee off the over-matched fodder.
Look at the guys that Canelo has fought recently: Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Liam Smith, Amir Khan, Miguel Cotto and James Kirkland. At first glance, the average boxing fans might think, ‘Hey, I know those guys. They’re pretty good fighters.’ Those are good but not among the best in their respective divisions. Khan is a welterweight, and he’s not capable of winning a world title in that I’m not even sure if Khan could win a world title at 140 at this point.
Khan had no business a much bigger fighter like Canelo. Kirkland and Chavez Jr. are done. Those guys are not going to major players in boxing. Chavez Jr. is kind of fulfilling the same role that Kirkland was serving a couple of years ago in being an opponent for Canelo but not a treat. Liam Smith was arguably a paper champion.
”GGG is going to be very strong. Canelo is going to want to box but I feel that Golovkin will have a lot for Canelo, and he will win,” said Sanchez. “If not, he knocks him out in the later rounds. What should be noted is that Golovkin take it as a Mexican and Canelo has a definite style, we saw on Saturday, it will be a long fight,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez has wanted this fight for Golovkin against Canelo for a long, long time. Now that it’s here, he’s pretty excited about it, because this is the fight that will give Golovkin recognition if he’s able to bet Canelo in an impressive manner. If Golovkin knockouts Canelo, it’s going to vault the Kazakhstan fighter to the top of the boxing world, and maybe even the pound for pound ranking. That will be up to Ring Magazine to decide if they want to give Golovkin the No.1 spot for beating Canelo. I have a feeling that Canelo will receive the No.1 spot with the Ring pound-for-pound ratings, but I’m not so sure if Golovkin will be able to get the top spot for beating Canelo. Let’s just say I’ll be pleasantly surprised if Golovkin gets the No.1 position.
Knocking out Canelo will be a high honor for Golovkin, because no one has done that yet to the redheaded Mexican star. If Canelo is knocked clean out by Golovkin on September 16, it’s going to send huge shock-waves through the boxing world and it’ll very likely turn Golovkin into a big PPV star. It will also create a dilemma for Golden Boy with them needing to decide whether to have their golden goose Canelo fight Golovkin in a rematch or not.
Golden Boy would be risking a lot in putting Canelo in with Golovkin a second time if he’s knocked out in the first fight. A second knockout could be it for Canelo in terms of his career or as a PPV star. Canelo can do whatever he wants, but I think it’s apparent that Golden Boy Promotions are the ones that manage his career. Canelo lets Golden Boy make the decisions for him. If things were up to Canelo, he likely would have fought Golovkin in 2015 instead of waiting until 2017.
The thing is if Golden Boy doesn’t let Canelo fight Golovkin a second time to try and avenge the loss, it’s going to cause Canelo to lose face with his boxing fans. It would be much worse than how Canelo didn’t fight Golovkin for 2 years despite the demand being there. The decision to delay the Canelo-Golovkin fight for 2 years hurt Canelo with a lot of boxing fans seeing him as a coward for not taking the fight.
I think Canelo lost a lot of fans by not taking on GGG. Those fans might jump on board the Canelo express right now, given that he’s fighting GGG, but I think those same boxing fans will disappear if Canelo losses to Triple G and then doesn’t fight him in a rematch. You can believe Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez will enjoy seeing Canelo dash off in the other direction instead of fighting Golovkin again, because it would leave his fighter GGG as the last man standing in the middleweight division.
If Canelo turns tail and runs from Golovkin after he loses to him, then that would pretty much make Golovkin the kind of the middleweight division. Golovkin would still need to face WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders to take the last 160lb title not in his possession already, but I don’t think for a second that Golovkin will lose to him.
“This fight is something that had to happen. If it was not in September it was going to be next year,” said Sanchez about the Canelo-Golovki fight. ”How nice they negotiated and made the fight, the pressure was the one that forced them,”
Sanchez sounds like he’s gloating about Golovkin getting the fight with Canelo, but I think he’s right. The pressure from the boxing fans is what likely forced Golden Boy to finally let Canelo fight Golovkin. I know a lot of fans believe that the main reason that Canelo is fighting Golovkin right now is because of his last 2 performances against Danny Jacobs and Kell Brook. There are a huge number of fans that think Golovkin isn’t the same fighter now compared to what he was in the past.
The fans think that Golden Boy were concerned enough with Golovkin soon losing to someone else that they decided to make the Canelo-Golovkin fight right now while Golovkin is still unbeaten. But we don’t know whether Golovkin purposefully fought at half speed against his last 2 opponents Danny Jacobs and Kell Brook or not.
If GGG stayed in 1st gear for both of those fights, then it would explain why he didn’t look good. Golovkin has said in the past that he would carry opponents so that it would be interesting for the boxing fans instead of him just knocking them out immediately. Did Golovkin carry Brook and Jacobs on purpose so that he could get Canelo and Golden Boy to make the fight with him? I guess we’ll know for sure unless Golovkin admits doing that. It’s going to be a brutal shock to Canelo and Golden Boy if Golovkin comes out looking like the same fighter that obliterated Dominic Wade, David Lemieux and Willie Monroe Jr. Those fight weren’t that long ago. It’s hard to believe that Golovkin would have changed since then unless he purposefully made himself look average so that he could lure Canelo and Golden Boy to make a fight with him.
