By Dan Ambrose: Kell Brook is picking IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) to defeat Mexican star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs) in their fight on September 16 on HBO PPV. Brook thinks that GGG has too much power and talent for the 26-year-old Canelo to deal with in this fight.
Mexican boxing great Erik Morales is also picking Golovkin to beat Canelo, who he sees as still a flawed work in progress at this point in time. Morales is glad that Canelo is fighting the 35-year-old Golovkin now, because he feels that if he waits too long, the fight will be spoiled due to the Kazakhstan fighter aging.
“I favor Kovalev to win. I think he won the first time,” said Brook to Fighthub in giving his prediction for the Sergey Kovalev vs. Andre Ward rematch in June. “I’m picking him again. That’s a good fight. I favor Golovkin [over Canelo]. [Golovkin is] A bit too strong; a bit too good. It’s a good fight,” said Brook.
Brook fought Golovkin in September of last year, and he gave him some problems before he needed to be pulled out of the fight in the 5h round beause of an eye problem that made it necessary for the match to be stopped.
Golovkin is a 2:1 favorite over Canelo. This isn’t Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. that Canelo is fighting. This is real fight that the red-headed Mexican star has on his hands with Triple G. Canelo won’t have to try and coax Golovkin to start throwing punches like he did with Chavez Jr. in their disaster of a fight on May 6 on HBO PPV. Golovkin is going to be attacking Canelo the whole time.
The only question is will Golovkin box Canelo like he mostly did in his last fight against the bigger Danny Jacobs or does he revert to his usual fighting style of looking to slug it out? I have a feeling that Golovkin may elect to shoot for the knockout in this fight because he’s not going to be outweighed by 15 pounds like he was against Jacobs, who skipped the International Boxing Federation fight day weigh-in so that he could rehydrate even more.
Canelo will likely weigh-in on the morning of the fight so that he can try and win the IBF title, as well as the IBO, WBA and WBC belts. I don’t think it would play well if Canelo skipped the weigh-in like Jacobs did.
“At the beginning, yes, because I didn’t know what Jacobs did with eating and not making the IBF weight, but after I read, my perspective changed,” said Erik Morales to Fighthub about him initially being impressed with Jacobs in how he did against Golovkin, but then changing his mind after learning that he’d bailed on the IBF’s fight date weight check on the day of the GGG fight. “He [Golovkin] did well. He maintained his distance. Jacobs hits really hard and had an exaggerated weight advantage. So it was normal that Golovkin stayed back and moved and didn’t everything go, because punches hurt, and at the end of the way, it was the best that he could do. He did well,” said Morales.
Golovkin boxed Jacobs though most of the fight by using his jab. Some boxing fans gave Jacobs more credit than he deserved. They though Jacobs had landed a lot of shots. However, in looking at the Golovkin-Jacobs fight in slow motion, you can see Golovkin picking off almost everything that Jacobs threw at him in the fight. The only one landing cleanly in the fight was Golovkin with his jab. His jab was snapping Jacobs’ head back all night long.
“It’s a difficult fight for Canelo,”said Morales about the GGG fight. “Gennady Golovkin is a fighter that knows a lot, because he had a lot of amateur experience. He’s very sure of himself, and he hits hard. He knows how to control the ring, to cut it off. He knows how to do a lot of things, and he’s very complicated. Canelo is a fighter that is still in progress, growing, but still a work in progress. That’s not criticizing him. It’s constructive He still needs to work on things little by little. He’s going forward well, but he still lacks at the end of the day,” said Morales.
Canelo is still mainly a counter puncher at heart. If he sits and waits for Golovkin to attack all night long, he could get jabbed to pieces by him. Golovkin has a far better jab than Mayweather, and Canelo was nearly helpless in his fight against him in 2013. If Golovkin decides that he just wants to sit and jab Canelo, then it’s going to force the Golden Boy star into taking chances by going after Golovkin. I don’t think that’s going to work out well for him.
It’s a very difficult fight for Canelo to be fighting Golovkin, because he’s not had the fights under his belt to pick up the experience that he would need for him to have a good chance of beating Triple G. Canelo’s fights haven’t prepared him for this moment. Fighting these guys is not preparation for Golovkin: Amir Khan, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., James Kirkland, Alfredo Angulo, Liam Smith and Erislandy Lara. Those type of fighters is preparation for Canelo to fight someone like Billy Joe Saunders or David Lemieux, but definitely not Golovkin. That’s the real problem. Canelo hasn’t been fighting the right guys, and you can guess why he’s been fighting these limited guys. Golden Boy hasn’t been interested in putting Canelo in with fighters that had the talent to give him problems.
Canelo needs a win over Golovkin to take his career to the next level. His last fight against Chavez Jr. was definitely not a positive for his career. It was a disaster similar to the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao fight, but not quite as bad because the prices for the PPV were not through the roof like that fight. If Canelo can’t beat Golovkin, then his career is going to be back to square one with him needing to rebuild from another loss.
Like Oscar De La Hoya, Kell Brook thinks it’s a rotten idea for Floyd Mayweather Jr. to fight UFC star Conor McGregor, because he sees the fight as bad for boxing. Brook doesn’t elaborate as to why it’s bad for boxing, but it’s possible that he sees a lot of upset fans if the fight fails to be exciting and/or competitive.
“Anything can happen. I think it’s bad for boxing,” said Brook in talking about the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor fight. I think there’s only one winner and that’s Mayweather. It’s going to be some kind of show. Maybe; Maybe not. I’m not sure,” said Brook in response to whether Mayweather-McGregor will bring in a lot of PPV buys.
The problem with the Mayweather-McGregor fight is it’s probably mainly going to be purchased by the casual boxing fans. These are people that mainly purchase fights on PPV when it’s a big deal involving well-known fighters like Mayweather. Those fans could feel ripped off if the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight fails to be an exciting one. Mayweather is going to disappear after his fight with McGregor. Mayweather will still be a promoter with Mayweather Promotions, but none of his current fighters are PPV attractions, and it’s not likely that any of them ever will. So if the PPV industry is hurt for the next 5 years because of the Mayweather-McGregor fight, it won’t likely impact Mayweather because his fighters aren’t PPV guys.
Brook has a very important fight on Saturday night against Errol Spence Jr. (21-0, 18 KOs) at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England. Brook can put himself in position to become a big name if he beats Spence. It could lead to a unification fight between Brook and WBA/WBC welterweight champion Keith Thurman in 2018. That would be a big fight for Brook. All he needs to do is get past Spence and he could get a huge fight with Thurman.
