By Dan Ambrose: Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) says Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs) has never been inside the ring with anyone with the kind of punching power that he possesses. Golovkin notes that Canelo couldn’t even knockout Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in his last fight. Chavez Jr. was throwing almost nothing back at Canelo for 12 rounds.
Chavez Jr. was just taking punishment. It wasn’t a fight. Golovkin doesn’t know how Canelo couldn’t knockout a fighter in the condition Chavez Jr. was in.
On September 16, GGG is going to be testing Canelo’s ability withstand his punching power when the two of them fight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“Canelo has never tried a power like mine,” said Golovkin to ESPN Deportes. “If he could not knock Julio Cesar Chavez, and they pretend he can knock me out.”
Canelo has fought one big puncher during his career in his fight with James Kirkland. Canelo looked tired after round 1 in that fight. Canelo punched himself out in the 1st. For most of the 2nd round, Canelo was resting against the ropes covering up. It was lucky for him that Kirkland didn’t have the stamina to land his own shots because he had Canelo where he wanted.
After resting for most of the round, Canelo came on late and landed some uppercuts and body shots. In round 3, Canelo went back to the ropes and took some heavy blows from Kirkland. However, Canelo was able to hurt Kirkland with an uppercut that put him down. The fight was over moments later when Canelo hit an already badly hurt Kirkland with a right to the head. There are a couple of things to learn from watching Canelo’s fight against Kirkland and they are as follows:
– Canelo gets tired very easily and needs to take constant rest breaks against the ropes. That’s unwelcome news if he does that against Golovkin. Canelo is incapable of just standing and fighting for a full 3 minutes of every round. He can’t do that unfortunately. That’s going to hurt Canelo against Golovkin if he needs to rest against the ropes. Golovkin does well when he has an opponent that is resting with their backs against the ropes. Golovkin did his best work against Curtis Stevens, Danny Jacobs, Kell Brook and Willie Monroe Jr. when they were backed up against the ropes. Canelo has no choice but to go to the ropes. He can train hard not to go to the ropes, but he doesn’t appear to have the cardiovascular system needed for him to stand in the middle of the round and fight hard. Boxing is an aerobic sport more than many fans realize. The muscular fighters like Canelo get tired easily, and they need to take rest breaks. That’s just the unfortunate thing about fighters with heavy muscles. They must rest. The guys with more athletic physiques like Floyd Mayweather Jr. took advantage of the short fighters that need rest breaks. We saw that in Mayweather’s fight with Canelo. Mayweather made Canelo pay each time he needed to take a break in their fight. That was Canelo at 22. At that age, Canelo was supposed to be at the height of his career in terms of stamina. It goes downhill when fighters start nearing their 30s like Canelo is now. Canelo needed rest breaks against Mayweather, and he’s going to need them even more against Golovkin. That’s not going to go well for Canelo, especially if he can’t take the heavy shots that Golovkin keeps hitting him with each time he backs up against the ropes. It’s going to be target practice for Golovkin.
– Canelo’s main weapon is his uppercut. That’s his best punch in many of his fights. He has a good left hook, but it’s his uppercut that he uses to try and score knockouts. Against a hapless fighter like Kirkland, who has no defense whatsoever, it was too easy for Canelo. He had a punching bag in that fight and he took advantage of it. Kell Brook could hit Golovkin with a good uppercut in round 2 of their fight. However, Golovkin quickly adapted to that punch and he blocked it or leaned away from it in the subsequent rounds. Brook kept trying to land it, but he couldn’t. If Canelo can’t land his uppercut against Golovkin, then his goose is going to be cooked because that’s by far the best punch in his arsenal.
– Contrary to popular opinion, Canelo does not fight well in close. He had no power when he was being smothered by Kirkland in close. If you watch that fight, Canelo was ineffective when Kirkland was right in his face. When Canelo can’t get leverage on his left hooks and uppercuts, he’s helpless. Kirkland did Canelo a favor by giving him space so that he could fight at medium distance. That was when Canelo would do well. Canelo will be out of his league if Golovkin smothers him and stays in close. Canelo can’t win that kind of fight. He needs Golovkin to give him space so that he can use his hand speed and connect his uppercuts. If Golovkin stays on top of Canelo on the inside, Canelo will lose and lose badly. Golovkin is the far inside fighter because of his superior power and ability to throw short punches to the body.
– Canelo is unable to fight on the outside. When Kirkland was on the outside, Canelo lacked the arm length to land his shots. Canelo did better when Kirkland would move towards him and try and throw his own short punches. It was lucky for Canelo that Kirkland didn’t know to throw a jab from the outside. If he had used his jab, Canelo would have lost that fight, because he doesn’t have long arms or the flexibility to fight from long range. Everything with Canelo is at medium distance.
I don’t think Golden Boy Promotions really believes that Canelo can knockout Triple G. They must know that Canelo’s chances of knocking out GGG are quite slim after watching him struggle against Chavez Jr. and Miguel Cotto. Canelo never came close to knocking either of those fighters out. His power wasn’t good enough, and he was unable to put his punches together for him to get the job done. Both of those guys were ideal opponents to knockout. Cotto has been knocked out in the past by Antonio Margarito, who wasn’t exactly fast of hand and foot. Chave Jr. was recently stopped by Andrzej Fonfara.
“Canelo has lacked seriousness, has been disrespectful to people and boxing,” said Golovkin. ”After each fight he said he was ready to face me, but then he did not. He talked a lot. If I was afraid to face someone, it is incomprehensible that I would challenge after every fight, without being ready to do it,” said Triple G.
I don’t think Canelo wanted the fight against Golovkin when he was looking spectacular in mowing down his opponents. My opinion is Canelo was afraid of Golovkin. It wasn’t until Golovkin looked human against Kell Brook and Danny Jacobs that Canelo and Golden Boy showed that they were ready to take the fight. They saw something in Golovkin that makes them feel they can win now.
It’s unclear why Canelo challenged Golovkin to get in the ring and fight him after he knocked out welterweight Amir Khan last year. That was the confusing thing, because Canelo made it seem like he wanted to fight Golovkin. But not long after that, Canelo vacated his WBC middleweight title seemingly just so that he wouldn’t have to face Triple G. It made Canelo look really bad with the way he did that. It’s good that Canelo finally took the fight with Golovkin, but it’s been 2 years.
There are a lot of boxing fans that have drifted away after seeing Canelo fail to take the challenge. Canelo can win those boxing fans back if he defeats Golovkin, but I’m questioning whether he can or not.
If things don’t work out well for Canelo against GGG, there’s going to need to be some soul-searching on his part. Does he fight Triple G again and risk being embarrassed for a second time or does he move on and take his chances fighting some of the other fighters in the middleweight division? The unfortunate thing is for Canelo, he’s going to look like he’s ducking fighters if he chooses to avoid Golovkin in a rematch and if he doesn’t fight Jermall Charlo or Danny Jacobs. That’s 3 fighters that are difficult to avoid. If Golovkin takes out WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders, then there’s really one other guy that Golden Boy can feed Canelo and that’s David Lemieux. I’m not sure that Canelo can beat Lemieux. That would be a very tough fight.
Lemieux is a lot more powerful than Kirkland, and he’s someone that is going to stick around long enough to land a lot of heavy shots. If Canelo is counting on trying to knock Lemieux out quickly without taking punishment like he did against Kirkland, then I think he’s kidding himself. It’s not going to happen. Lemieux will be around long enough to test Canelo’s chin and his body with some tremendous shots. If Canelo goes to the ropes against Lemieux, I see the fight ending very quickly. Lemieux will destroy Canelo if he takes a rest break against the ropes.
Curtis Stevens tried to rest against the ropes, and he knocked out by Lemieux. It’s not safe to be on the ropes against Lemieux. He scores a lot of his knockouts when his opponents foolishly back up against the ropes, thinking it’ll protect them. In Canelo’s case, he has no choice but to go to the ropes. He doesn’t possess the stamina to stay in the center of the ring to move around and fight. His legs get tired and needs to catch his breath. The ropes are the only place where Canelo can recover. If Canelo loses to Golovkin and Lemieuix in back to back fights, then I think he’ll decide to move back down to junior middleweight or his special 155lb catch-weight class that he created and just stay there, and fight certain guys but not dangerous fighters like the Charlos or Jacobs.