By Dan Ambrose: Saul Canelo Alvarez wants to punish IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin in their rematch on September 15 for his mouthing off since their last fight a year ago. Canelo wants to tear GGG’s head off this time. However, for Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) to do that, he’s going to need to make major improvements in his conditioning from the way he fought last time, and there’s a lot of doubts whether he can.
Canelo was only good for one minute of each three-minute round last September at the T-Mobile Arena. I think it’s very doubtful that Canelo will make much in roads with his conditioning. If he were able to improve his conditioning, he would have done so by now you would think. Canelo’s has had stamina problems since he first turned pro in 2005. He was in his teens back then and he still had stamina problems. I think it’s quite possible that Canelo will never be able to improve his conditioning no matter how hard he tries.
When you look a wide body fighters, they’re rarely capable of fighting fast paced fights like more slender fighters with better aerobic conditioning. If Canelo doesn’t improve his stamina for the rematch, he’ll surely lose unless there’s another group of judges that see the fight differently from how the general public views it. That would be bad news for Canelo, as he’s already seen a fighter that has been pampered by fans. If Canelo spends the next six weeks working on his conditioning, I don’t think it’s going to do much unless he loses a lot of weight.
Canelo says he’s the more sports oriented of the two, while GGG is just looking to get as much money as he can.
“No doubt this will be a better fight,” Canelo said to ESPN Deportes. “The desire to tear his head off is so big, and it will be much better.”
Golovkin mostly jabbed last time against Canelo until the final three rounds of the fight. Canelo was hit with only a couple of really hard punches from GGG. It was mostly jabs that Canelo was hit with, and they were definitely powerful jabs because they were snapping his head back and forcing him to run.
Canelo didn’t take a lot of punishment in his previous fight against Triple G due to his defensive focus. Canelo was on the move for most of the fight. When Canelo did stop and fight, he was rolling with the punches that Golovin was throwing, causing many of them to miss. Golovkin made the mistake of not throwing body punches after he was warned early on for hitting Canelo in the back. Canelo tricked the referee by turning his back to Golovkin whenever he’d throw a body shot. The referee should have warned Canelo to stop turning his back to GGG when he’d target the body. Instead of warning Canelo, the referee gave Golovkin a warning. It was a poor effort from the referee unfortunately.
Canelo is still young at 27, but he might not have a lot of time in his career due to him moving up to 160 and not doing well against GGG last year. The fight was scored a 12 round draw, but it was a clear win for Golovkin. The judges had an off night in the same way that the referee. The way that the 5’8” Canelo fought against Golovkin, you could tell that he’s going to have further problems in the future when he faces the other top middleweights in the division. Canelo will likely lose to Golovkin in the rematch, but it will depend on the judges assigned judges for the fight. Golovkin might need a knockout if the same type of judges works the rematch as the first fight.
Canelo is talking about wanting to fight until he’s 35, but I don’t think he’s going to last that long. Once he starts losing repeatedly, I think he’s going to walk away from the sport shortly after that rather than suffer the indignity of being viewed by the boxing public as an over-the-hill fighter. I don’t think it would be the case of Canelo being a shot fighter. It would be more of a product that he’s finally fighting in the weight class designed for his weight. At welterweight and junior middleweight, Canelo was arguably a weight bully through most of his career, fighting guys lighter than himself much of the time. Canelo was also fighting a lot of soft touches like Matthew Hatton, Alfredo Angulo, Josesito Lopez, Amir Khan, Liam Smith and James Kirkland.
Canelo will likely try initially to put more pressure on Golovkin than he did in the first fight. Canelo had some success at times in rounds 10, 11 and 12 last September against GGG, but that was only in the first minute of the rounds. I think it’s likely that Canelo will try and brawl with Golovkin in the first four rounds, and if he’s not able to back him off, he’ll revert to form and get on his bike and look to use the same spoiling tactics that he used last time. I think it’s doubtful that Canelo will be able to fight hard for more than one minute of each round before he turns red in the face and is forced to get on his bike and run to catch a breather. The only thing new that Canelo can do is use more pressure, and that’s not something he’ll likely be able to sustain due to his cardiovascular problems, which appear to be resistant to change. Cardio problems tend to be lingering issues for certain fighters that are incapable of being improved to any extent.
Golovkin will be taking a risk of losing rounds if he goes to the body much in the fight, as he’s not as quick as Canelo in terms of hand speed. Golovkin will get countered a lot if he throws a lot of body shots, and as we saw last September, it only takes Canelo two or three hard shots for him to win rounds. The judges ignored Golovkin out-landing Canelo by a wide margin each round. They were mainly scoring the rounds based on Canelo landing a tiny amount of hard shots. As such, it’s not a good idea for Golovkin to go to the body a lot in the fight because he’ll put himself in position where he’ll get hit.
Golovkin’s problems last time against Canelo were these:
– Unable to cut off the ring effectively against Canelo
– Not throwing body shots
– Lack of hand speed
– Getting hit with the cleaner, harder shots due to his decision to throw mainly jabs
– Missing a lot when he was throwing power shots
If Golovkin is going to win this fight, he’s going to need to cut off the ring better against Canelo, because the Mexican fighter is surely going to move all night long once he tires out after the first minute of every round. There’s no chance at all that Canelo will stand and fight Golovkin for the full three minutes of each round because he’s physically incapable of doing so. Canelo doesn’t have the engine, so he’ll get on his bike and look to restore his energy by getting enough space to catch his breath. If Golovkin stays close to Canelo to prevent him from moving, then that should change the complexion of the fight, but GGG will need to be willing to take hard shots long enough to tire Canelo out to beat him up. I don’t think GGG likes to be embarrassed, and that could be a factor in him not being willing to stay close to Canelo long enough to tire him. Good fighters in the past have been willing to take punishment in order to wear down their opponents. I don’t think Golovkin is willing to do that. If he does, then Canelo is going to be in for a world of hurt on September 15.