By Dan Ambrose: Gennady “GGG” Golovkin must destroy challenger Saul “Canelo” Alvarez to take away the “aura” of the Golden Boy Promotions star, says Triple G’s trainer Abel Sanchez. Golovkin and Canelo meet in 2 ½ weeks from now on HBO pay-per-view on September 16 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Sanchez didn’t mention the reason why Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) needs to smash the highly popular Canelo (49-1-1, 34 KOs) to pieces, but it likely has to do with the way the judges have favored him in fights where he appeared to lose against Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara in the not too distant past.
“Gennady needs to beat Canelo. He needs to destroy Canelo, destroy the aura that he has right now,” said Sanchez.
The best way to beat a popular fighter like Canelo is to make sure the judges have no say so in the final outcome of the fight. The best way to do that is to knock him clean out. There will no discussion if GGG knocks Canelo out completely on September 16. It would be the end of story. The only negative about Golovkin knocking Canelo into next week is there would likely never be a rematch.
When a fighter gets absolutely smashed, it takes away the chances for a rematch. It takes a special fighter to want to get back inside the ring with a fighter that has knocked them out. Canelo would have to put his foot down and insist that his promoters at Golden Boy let him fight Triple G again in a rematch, as I don’t see them wanting to take the chance of their golden goose getting plucked clean by Golovkin in a second fight.
Canelo has a large enough fan base for him to recover from a vicious knockout loss to Golovkin and continue to be a PPV attraction in the U.S. Obviously, Golden Boy would need to be very selective in the type of guys they put in with Canelo in the future. If Canelo gets knocked out badly by Golovkin, it wouldn’t be smart to throw him into the ring with talented guys in the 160 lb. division like Jermall Charlo, Sergiy Derevyanchenko, David Lemieux, Daniel Jacobs and Luis Arias. Those guys would have be bad news for Canelo if he gets knocked out badly by Golovkin.
Golovkin seems to have a different mentality for this fight than he did in his previous one against Danny Jacobs. In the build up to that fight, Golovkin was talking nonstop about how he needed a “decision fight.” For the Canelo fight, Golovkin is saying he plans on knocking Canelo out. It’s entirely different mentality from Golovkin. He does not want to let Canelo go the distance with him.
That’s not good news for Canelo, because when Golovkin has talked like that in the past, he’s knocked out his opponents. In some cases, Golovkin has let guys off the hook after dropping them early. I don’t think Golovkin is going to do that with Canelo. If Golovkin gets Canelo in trouble on September 16, he’s not going to take any chances by letting him survive. Golovkin will shoot for the coup de grace to get Canelo out of there. I just hope Canelo understands what’s in store for him against Golovkin.
Canelo has been fed so many punching bags by Golden Boy lately that he could be in shock when gets in the ring with Golovkin and he starts getting bombarded with big power shots. What’s going to be interesting for me is to see how Canelo reacts to getting hammered when he backs up for his customary rest breaks. Canelo is so accustomed to being given rest breaks by his opponents without having to deal with withering fire. Canelo then is able to take deep breathes to replenish his exhausted energy levels. He then moves off the ropes for another 20 second burst of punches before going back to the ropes again for another rest break. Those rest breaks are going to be Canelo’s undoing in against Golovkin.
The only fighter that has been given a decision win over Canelo was the more popular fighter Floyd Mayweather Jr. in his one-sided 12 round decision win over him in 2013. Even in that fight, one judge embarrassingly scored the fight a draw. If the scoring for the Canelo-GGG fight comes down to a popularity contest, then Golovkin has zero chance of winning a decision against the redheaded Mexican star. Not now, not ever. Golovkin will need a knockout of Canelo if the fight is scored on popularity rather than on what takes place inside the ring on September 16.
Golovkin, 35, was losing interest in trying to fight Canelo last year when he chose not to fight him after calling him out after his win over welterweight Amir Khan in May 2016. Canelo talked boldly when he was inside the ring after his 6th round knockout win over Khan, making it seem like he honestly was ready to fight Triple G. Nevertheless, instead of making the fight with Golovkin, Canelo turned around and vacated his WBC middleweight title and then moved down to 154 to fight WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith.
It might have been Golden Boy’s decision to have Canelo swerve the Golovkin fight in 2016, but Canelo still could have insisted on making the fight if he wanted to. Canelo took a lot of flak from the boxing world for choosing not to fight Golovkin at that time. Obviously, Golden Boy felt Canelo wasn’t ready to fight Golovkin at that time.
Golovkin was looking invincible through the first part of 2016. It wasn’t until recently that he struggled in his last 2 fights against Kell Brook in late September last year and Danny Jacobs last March. It’s anyone’s guess if those back to back off performances by GGG had anything to do with Golden Boy’s decision to finally make the Canelo-Golovkin fight after having him wait 2 years.
”The last two years, I lose interest, because after every fight, Golden Boy said, ‘No. OK, maybe next fight.’ I remember the situation after the Amir Khan fight, when I go into the ring. Oscar De La Hoya said, ‘This is a good day for us and I will call GGG’s manager tomorrow.’ I think it was hard on the fans too,” said.
It’s too bad Golovkin was in a position where he had to wait 2 years for a fight that should have taken place in 2015. If Golovkin was a bigger star, he could have put Canelo on permanent ignore after he chose not to fight him last year. In boxing, the less popular fighters have to wait for the guys with the larger fan bases to decide when and where they’re going to fight them.
Golovkin is lucky that Canelo didn’t make him wait another 2 years before finally agreeing to fight him. Golovkin would be 37 if that were the case. If Golovkin was a bigger name, he would have likely had the fight against Canelo as early as 2014. He obviously wasn’t popular enough, and he’s had to wait all this time to finally get the fight.
It’s a huge step up for Canelo in facing Golovkin from the opposition Golden Boy Promotions has been matching him with. Canelo’s last real fight against someone with skills was 2 years ago against Miguel Cotto in 2015. Cotto isn’t a middleweight though. He’s more of a pumped up welterweight, who was at a weigh disadvantage in his fight against Canelo. Canelo’s fight against Erislandy Lara was the toughest test for him since his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013.
Canelo beat Lara, but that decision has been second guessed by fans ever since that fight took place. Canelo is largely seen as having been given a gift win over the less popular Lara. Sanchez doesn’t want GGG to wind up in the same boat as Lara and Austin Trout in losing a controversial decision against Canelo. Sanchez wants Golovkin to get the win in a neat and clean manner by knocking Canelo out.
“We know Golovkin is a strong boxer, but Saul is a better boxer, and his time is now,” said Canelo’s trainer Eddy Reynoso.
I don’t know if Canelo is the better boxer than Golovkin. I know a lot of boxing fans believe that to be the case, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Canelo is a better counter puncher than Triple G, and he has the better hand speed than him. However, I don’t believe that Canelo’s boxing skills are better than Golovkin. Golovkin is very sound defensively when he wants to. The thing is, Golovkin has gotten caught into wanting to impress the boxing public by knocking out everyone he faces.
To score knockouts at the upper level of the sport, a fighter needs to put his chin on the line to get his big power shots. He also needs to fight hard for three minutes of every round, something that Canelo doesn’t seem capable of doing due to his cardio problems. In looking to knockout his opponents, Golovkin tends to get hit a lot. If Golovkin choose to box like Canelo, he wouldn’t get hit, but he would have far fewer knockouts as well. The result of that would be Golovkin not building a huge fan base in the U.S.
Canelo didn’t need to knockout a bunch of fighters for him to become a big name in the U.S. With Canelo well-connected in being one of the fighters in the huge Golden Boy Promotions stable, he was able to get a leg up on other fighters. Of course, it didn’t hurt Canelo having a tremendous build in fan base of Mexican boxing fans in the U.S, and having unusual looks with his red hair. Canelo stands out from other fighters.
“After the Julio Cesar Chavez fight, I believed it is possible for us, and in June I see Canelo’s face, and it is more serious,” said Golovkin. ”He is ready. This was not like Canelo not being ready. It was Golden Boy not being ready,” said Golovkin.
The timing was perfect for Golovkin to get the fight against Canelo this year. You can argue what made it very important that Golden Boy match Canelo against Golovkin in September was how badly the Canelo vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. fight turned out. This was supposed to be great fight for the boxing fans, with tons of two-way action back and forth. It ended up being a horrible mismatch with Canelo beating up a painfully thin Chavez Jr., who looked like he’d been on a starvation diet to make the 164.5 lb. catch-weight for the fight. As bad as the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight turned out being, I think it put Golden Boy in a tough position where if they didn’t make the fight against Golovkin at that time, Canelo’s loyal boxing fans would be jumping ship by the thousands, heading in the direction of more daring fighters.
In hindsight, Golden Boy needs to do a better job in selecting fighters from the past to throw into the ring with Canelo. That was the third time in the last three years that Golden Boy has found a name from the past that had to drain huge amounts of weight off in order to fight Canelo. The other two fighters that had to lose massive amounts of weight in training camp to get ready to fight Canelo were Alfredo Angulo and James Kirkland. Both guys looked like wasted shells of their former selves when they got into the ring with Canelo. The results were dreadful mismatches.
Hopefully with Golden Boy letting Canelo fight Golovkin, it’ll be a welcome change in the match-making they do for their flagship fighter. It would be a tragedy if Canelo continues to be matched against guys like Chavez Jr., Angulo and Kirkland into the future. The boxing fans want to see Canelo fight the best. They’ve been getting lip service from Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya about how Canelo is going to fight the best, but it’s not been happening. Miguel Cotto is not the best. He WAS the best years ago, but now he’s just a guy that is carefully matched ever since his loss to Austin Trout in 2012.