By Jim Dower: Last weekend, Abel Sanchez said Saul Canelo Alvarez was using a stacking technique for his hand-wraps for his fight against Gennady Golovkin last September that was illegal. Sanchez says the “illegal” hand-wrapping of Canelo’s hands creates a cast out of his hand and it becomes a weapon.
The magic question that has to be asked to Team Golovkin is if they believe that Canelo is using an illegal hand-wrapping technique, then why did they agree to fight him a second time in Las Vegas, Nevada? Sanchez says this type of hand-wrapping technique is allowable in Nevada, but not elsewhere.
Why did Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler agree to let the second fight with Canelo take place in Nevada? If the hand-wrapping technique used by Canelo for the GGG fight, then why would Team Golovkin ever agree to fight in Nevada again? That’s the question that needs to be answered. Does the money make the risk worth it? It seems like the logical thing for Golovkin’s team to have done in the negotiations with Golden Boy would to either get an agreement that Canelo wouldn’t use this particular method of hand-wrapping or else they won’t agree to fight him in the state of Nevada, where they supposedly allow this stacking technique for hand-wraps. You can argue that Loeffler needs to be a lot more assertive and proactive for his fighter GGG if he’s concerned with the hand-wrapping from Canelo. If Golovkin is injured seriously from head trauma in the rematch with Canelo in Nevada, there’s going to be a lot of second-guessing from some boxing fans about why Team GGG didn’t have the hand-wrapping issue addressed in the negotiations and the fight moved to a state that doesn’t permit the stacking technique that the Golden Boy star uses.
This isn’t the first time that Sanchez has commented on Canelo’s wraps. He’s been saying it for a while now, and he’s clearly still bothered about the issue. Sanchez states that the wrapping technique that was used on Canelo’s hands for the GGG fight would be illegal in California. He says it’s now being written in the rules of the Nevada State Athletic Commission so that it’s legal in that state.
When Sanchez was asked why he didn’t use a similar wrap on Golovkin’s hands in layering in the same way, and he said he wants to stay consistent to the way he’s wrapped his fighter’s hands in the past. He doesn’t want his fighters to get used to the type of hand wrapping that is allowed in Nevada, because then they’ll want that style to be used when they’re outside of Nevada and they won’t be able to do that.
“This is completely illegal in my part of the world, except in Vegas,” Sanchez said about Canelo’s stacking technique for his hand wraps. “They’re rewriting their rules to allow that only in Nevada,” Sanchez said about the Nevada Athlete Commission. “Now they’re specifying that it’s legal.”
Again, Sanchez and Loeffler should negotiate with Golden Boy that they’re not going to fight Canelo if he’s going to use this type of hand-wrapping. They can obviously push hard to make sure that Canelo and his trainers changes his hand-wrapping. If they refuse to change their hand-wrapping technique, then Golovkin’s team can say they won’t fight Canelo in Nevada. If that type of hand-wrapping is illegal elsewhere in the States, then they can turn down the rematch with Canelo as long as the fight is going to take place in a state where he’s allowed to use the stacking method of hand-wrapping. With the issues that Sanchez brings up about Canelo’s hand-wrapping, you have to wonder why Team Golovkin still agreed to fight him in Nevada for the May 5th rematch. Some promoters might not have agreed to a second fight if they had concerns with the type of hand wrapping for the opponents facing their fighters. Does Golovkin really need to fight Canelo again if he’s going to be using a hand-wrapping method that Sanchez objects to? This issue should have been addressed during negotiations. It’s hard to believe that Loeffler didn’t insist on this style of hand-wrapping not be used. Why wouldn’t Loeffler make sure that Canelo wasn’t allowed to do this again if what Sanchez says is true about his hands being turned into a cast from the way his trainers are wrapping them. Golovkin’s team wants Canelo to be tested for performance enhancing drugs from this point until their proposed rematch in September. You would think they would see Canelo’s hand-wraps as just as important. Why would they not?
”It’s not what we in the business see as fair play,” Sanchez said about Canelo’s hand-wrapping technique. ”Building a cast, to what they did is in order to get away from putting tape on the hand, the put a wrap and tape, wrap and tape. What do they do when you get a cast? They put layers and layers and layers. You can call the California Commission and they’ll tell you that is completely illegal. They’re against their [rules]. All you’re doing is making your hand more like a weapon,” Sanchez said.
If Sanchez knew about the hand-wrapping problem before the first Canelo-GGG fight, then they did they agree to the fight? Moving forward, Golovkin’s management should insist that the second fight take place in a state that doesn’t allow stacking of hand-wraps.
Sanchez still has problems with the movement that Canelo used against Golovkin in their first fight. He thinks he should have stood and fought him instead of moving around the ring. Sanchez blames Canelo for the fight not being as exciting as it could have been. However, Golovkin could have prevented Canelo from moving on him if he’d stayed in close. Canelo wouldn’t have been able to elude Golovkin if the Kazakhstan fighter had been on top of him for the full 12 round fight instead of staying on the outside, jabbing and being defensive. The great Julio Cesar Chavez knew how to fight guys that moved a lot, and that was to stay close to them. Golovkin didn’t do that against Canelo. He only has himself to blame.
”If he’s saying he wants to knock him out, he has to stand in there to knock him out,” Sanchez said about Canelo. ”You can’t throw something in desperation to knock somebody out. You’re going to have to knock somebody out by standing there and wanting to knock them out. If you saw the Hagler and Leonard fight, Leonard didn’t run. He stood there and fought Hagler, but that was boxing. Golovkin stood there and fought with Canelo. Golovkin tried to make it a fight. Canelo fought a great fight not to get knocked out. He fought a great fight, a fight that he had never fought before. If I’m a consumer and I’ve seen 45 (of Canelo’s) fights before, then I’m expecting a fight like that on fight night. If I get a different fight, as a consumer I’m going to complain that I didn’t get what I paid for,” Sanchez said about Canelo fighting a defensive fight by running from Golovkin.
Sanchez needs to teach Golovkin how to deal with fighters that move a lot against him, because it’s very likely that guys like Canelo and Daniel Jacobs will continue to be mobile when they fight him, especially early on in the fights, because they don’t want to be forced into a war with him while he’s fresh and at his most dangerous point.
“I think he made a mistake,” Sanchez said about Canelo testing positive twice for the banned substance clenbuterol. “Quit making mistakes. Get enrolled in VADA.”
Sanchez and Loeffler can tell Golden Boy that they won’t let Golovkin fight Canelo if he doesn’t enroll in VADA testing immediately. That’s something they can do. If they’re looking out for GGG’s best interests, they’ll be assertive with Golden Boy and walk away from the fight if they’re unable to get Canelo to start drug testing.