By Sean Jones: Trainer Abel Sanchez notes that Saul Canelo Alvarez did a lot of talking about how he was going to knockout Gennady Golovkin before their fight last September, but then when he got inside the ring with him on the night in Las Vegas, it was a different story. Canelo spent the major portion of the fight on the run trying to keep from getting knocked out.
Sanchez says Canelo would have been knocked out for sure if he’d stood and fought the unbeaten Golovkin (38-0-1, 34 KOs) instead of running from him the way he did.
Canelo (49-1-2, 34 KOs) used movement to negate the pressure that Golovkin was putting on him, as he was physically incapable of fighting at the pace and more importantly at the range that he was using to throw punches. Canelo was helpless when Golovkin was on the outside, and that’s why he had to move so much. It wasn’t entirely the pressure that was giving Canelo problems. It was the range that Golovkin was fighting at. The 5’8” Canelo lacked the height and reach to trade with Golovkin when he stood on the outside. Fortunately for Canelo, the judges that worked the fight ignored Golovkin’s domination from the outside.
”All those things were said prior to the first fight and it ended up being a track meet,” Sanchez said on Tuesday during the conference call. ”Oscar [De La Hoya] needs to remind him to bring his courage to the venue that night because he’s going to need it.”
Canelo’s problems don’t involve a lack of courage. He’s very self-aware of his limitations as a fighter, and understands that he doesn’t have the gas tank to fight hard and he never will. Those are built in limitations that are beyond improvement.
As much as Canelo has been talking about wanting to fight differently in the Golovkin rematch, I don’t think he’s going to. It would be a disaster for the 27-year-old Canelo if he stands and trades with Golovkin for three minutes of each round. Canelo is nine years younger than Golovkin, but as far as his aerobic conditioning, he’s nowhere near as conditioned. Canelo fights hard for one-third of each round, and he’s always been that type of fighter. That’s all Canelo is capable of doing, and he seems to realize that, because that’s why he took off running after the one-minute point in each round. Canelo would fight hard for the first one-third of each round, and then get tired and run.
”If he intends to knock out Golovkin, he’s going to have to fight him. And if he fights him, he’s going to get knocked out. I said that before. He would have gotten knocked out the first time, but he decided to make it a track meet night.”
Canelo will try to fight a little bit more, but as I said already, he’s constrained by his inadequate cardiovascular system. He’s simply not made for fighting hard for long periods of time in his fights. It doesn’t matter if Canelo is fighting someone completely over-matched. If Canelo’s opponents are able to soak up punishment and keep throwing punches, he gets tired and needs a long rest break to restore his batteries before he can throw more punches. I think Canelo is going to come into the rematch with Golovkin leaner than he looked last time. Canelo’s physique looked completely different than it had ever looked before. Not only was Canelo bigger and more muscular, he was also totally defined like a bodybuilder. Looking at video of the previous fight, Canelo’s body looked nothing like what he’d looked
before. He was too muscular for him to have any chance of beating Golovkin. I know the judges scored it a draw, but they were all having off nights. Even the judge that gave it to Golovkin 115-113 was giving Canelo rounds in which he appeared to lose. The judges giving Canelo rounds 10, 11 and 12 was totally bizarre because he didn’t appear to win those rounds. Golovkin got the better of Canelo in rounds 10 and 12. Canelo clearly won the 11th.
”But if he comes to fight and if he comes to knockout Golovkin as he said he’s going to; if he doesn’t defraud the fans again, then he’s going to get knocked out,” Sanchez said.
I think that Canelo has been studying the minor degree of success he had in the championship rounds last September. He might believe that he can take the fight to Golovkin and get the better of him. Since it worked against Canelo when he tried to slug with Golovkin last time, I doubt that he’s going to even try to mix it up in the rematch. Canelo looked exhausted and in each of those rounds when he threw a handful of punches. Golovkin made it hard on himself by not going after Canelo hard to try and finish him. When Golovkin finally did let his hands go in the final 10 seconds of the 12th, he had Canelo stumbling and totally off balance. If there was another 30 seconds left in the 12th, I think Golovkin would have finished Canelo. What that final sequence from Golovkin showed is Canelo cannot fight hard in a sustained manner without his form going to pieces and his power dissipating.
Golovkin doubts that Canelo has all Mexico behind him for this fight. Golovkin thinks Canelo has lost a lot of boxing fans, and he believes he’s gained a lot of them.
“I do not think that in reality all of Mexico is supporting Canelo, I understand that he is a popular fighter, but if we made that concession, it was to give the fans the fight he wanted,” said Golovkin in talking about him backing down from his 50-50 demand that he had for the fight. Golovkin agreed to accept the 55-45 purse split at the last second.
Canelo testing positive twice for clenbuterol likely hasn’t endeared him with his Mexican boxing fans at home. Many of the fans aren’t buying his excuse about having eaten contaminated beef. Testing positive for clenbuterol hurt Canelo in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans.
“Everyone has their fans, but the reason why Canelo is side A is because he fights on HBO Pay Per View, he’s the only star on PPV, he’s the only one who makes those numbers,” said Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De la Hoya said via ESPN Deportes. “Canelo has millions of fans in the world, Golovkin maybe too, but Canelo has all of Mexico.”
Canelo obviously still has a ton of boxing fans, but I doubt that he has as many fans now as he did before his controversial 12 round raw against Triple G. If Canelo loses to Golovkin in the rematch on September 15, then he’s going to have fewer fans. Right now, Canelo still only has one loss on his resume from his defeat o Floyd Mayweather Jr. five years ago. Canelo got lucky with the crew of judges that worked the Golovkin fight last September. Canelo lost the fight to Golovkin in the eyes of the media that covered the fight, as well as the boxing public. If Canelo loses the fight to GGG, then it would hurt his popularity, and it could be the beginning of the end for his career. I don’t think Golden Boy will match Canelo against the dangerous fighters in the middleweight division if he loses to Golovkin.