By Jim Dower: Middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) is in the position where he can tie boxing great Bernard Hopkins if he defeats Saul Canelo Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) in his 20th title defense on May 5 in their rematch on HBO pay-per-view.
Golovkin is 1 successful title defense away from matching the record of Hopkins, who is openly saying he doesn’t want the Kazakhstan fighter to accomplish his goal. Hopkins is with Golden Boy Promotions, and Canelo is their biggest star. If Canelo loses and his career falters, Golden Boy doesn’t have anyone in their stable of fighters that has anywhere close to the same popularity. Oscar De La Hoya likes to say that he knows how to turn fighters into PPV stars, but he’s only been able to do that with Canelo.
The rematch is expected to have a lot more action between the 2 fighters. Canelo knows that he needs to throw more punches, to stay off the ropes, and not let Golovkin take over the fight with his higher work rate. Golovkin knows that he might not be given a win by the judges if it goes to the scorecards. Golovkin has to try for a knockout, and he must mix it up more with Canelo. Golovkin also needs to throw more body shots. He was head-hunting too much last time, and he enabled Canelo to look good in avoiding the shots with his head movement. If Golovkin had targeted Canelo’s wide body, he would have had great success in landing the punches down that. Canelo’s upper body is too wide for him to avoid body shots, and he doesn’t react well when hit hard down there.
Golovkin, 35, is less concerned with matching Hopkins’ record and more with just getting the win this time. Golovkin doesn’t want the judges to take the win away from him like they did on September 16th last year in his fight with Canelo on HBO PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The outcome of the fight was controversial. The judges felt that Canelo had done enough to deserve a 12 round draw. Canelo was able to land the cleaner shots in most of the rounds.
The thing that kept Canelo from winning is he only landed 1-3 good shots in each round, and he was buried in the punch count by Golovkin. The judges ignored Canelo getting hit countless times and they focused more on him landing a tiny handful of good shots. The scoring didn’t please the boxing fans, as they saw Golovkin controlling the fight for 12 rounds against a very tired looking Canelo.
“This is the fight boxing fans have been waiting for since the controversial outcome of last September, and the ONLY fight Gennady has wanted since that decision,” said Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler. “Gennady is ready for this historic record-tying 20th title defense where he will demonstrate his superiority over Canelo. Gennady is on a mission to prove he is still the best middleweight in the world today and one of the best fighters of his era.”
Golovkin is still seen as the best fighter at 160, but he lost a little of his aura that he had previously due to him failing to knockout his last 2 opponents Canelo and Daniel Jacobs. Golovkin has trying too hard to box lately in his last couple of fights, and he’s gotten away from what made him so popular in his career with his knockouts. Golovkin will need to go back to his former style of fighting if he wants to beat Canelo. That’s a given. The judges might side with Canelo if Golovkin fails to get the knockout in their rematch on May 5.