By Jeff Aranow: Saul Canelo Alvarez has an appointment on September 15 to get knocked out by middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin on September if he doesn’t turn the fight into a track meet like the previous one between the two, according to Triple G trainer Abel Sanchez, who chose to rip into the Golden Boy Promotions star on Tuesday during their Facebook satellite press conference.
Sanchez says Canelo will absolutely be getting knocked out by Golovkin (38-0-1, 34 KOs) in their rematch if he chooses to fight him instead of running for 12 rounds. It’s exactly one year later since their first fight on September 16, 2017 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The fight was scored as a 12 round draw, but the outcome was only agreed on by a small amount of people. Most saw GGG as a clear winner. Five months after the fight, Canelo tested positive twice for clenbuterol while training for a canceled rematch with Golovkin on May 5. This resulted in Canelo being suspended for six months by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. the suspension will expire on August 17, in time for the Canelo-GGG II rematch to take place.
“But if he comes to fight and if he comes to knock out Golovkin, as he said he’s going to — if he doesn’t defraud the fans again — then he’s going to get knocked out. I’ve said it and I’ll say it again,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez might be right about what he says about Canelo getting potentially stopped if he slugs with Golovkin. In going back and looking at Canelo’s fights against Floyd Mayweather Jr., Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Amir Khan, Alfredo Angulo and James Kirkland, he never showed the ability to fight for a full three minutes without needing to take long breaks to rest up.
The rematch between Gennady and Canelo is supposed to clear up their disputed 12 round draw from last September. The rematch will hopefully clear up the controversy, but it’s not a given that it will. It might take a third or even a fourth fight for the controversy to be finally cleared up. The two fighters are going back to the same venue as the previous fight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, and that puts GGG in the position in which he might need a knockout to get the ‘W’ in the fight. There’s going to be a ton of pressure on the judges to score the rematch better than the three judges that worked the first fight, but it remains to be seen whether they’ll do so.
Canelo says the fight is going to be different from the first one, but he doesn’t say how it’s going to be different. Canelo did well in fighting in brief spurts against Golovkin last September, but he struggled when he was forced to brawl in the second half of the fight. Golovkin generally got the better of Canelo when he was throwing a lot of shots and firing back shots after being nailed. Canelo would lose power on his shots quickly when he was forced to exchange with GGG. The power would be there for Canelo’s first pot shot, but after that his second and third punches would lose power quickly. He was like a battery losing it’s energy quickly when he was forced to let his hands go while under attack. It was somewhat alarming to see how fast Canelo would get tired when he was put under duress by GGG. If GGG goes on the attack in the rematch with more pressure, it’s going to be awfully difficult for Canelo to deal with the nonstop pressure.
Canelo and GGG were supposed to fight each other in a rematch on May 5 but the fight wound up being canceled after the 27-year-old Canelo (49-1-2, 34 KOs) tested positive for clenbuterol twice last February.
The fight wound up being canceled, and GGG needed to find a replacement opponent, which wound up being inactive junior middleweight contender Vanes Martirosyan. Golovkin had little problems in stopping Martirosyan in two rounds. Canelo wasn’t impressed with the level of Golovkin’s opponent, but he was still very good opponent given the time that the Kazakhstan fighter was left hanging out to dry three weeks before the fight with Alvarez pulling out. No one had ever knocked out Martirosyan before, so that made Golovkin’s performance a lot more impressive.
Canelo and Golovkin are now saying they don’t have much respect for each other, which isn’t all that surprising considering everything that has transpired since their previous fight. Of course, it doesn’t mean much whether the fighters have respect for each other or not. After all, this is a fight and they don’t need to like each other. Golovkin seems to be the more irritated of the due to him being on the receiving end up a controversial draw, and then seeing Canelo test positive twice for clenbuterol, which left GGG and his promoter Tom Loeffler scrambling for an opponent for the May 5 fight to replace Alvarez. Golovkin suspects that Canelo was using PEDs during their previous fight last September. Some fans think Canelo was on PEDs for the first fight due to how his physique looked so muscular in comparison to his previous fight. The two were somehow able to negotiate the rematch after Golovkin insisted on receiving a 50-50 deal. He wound up getting a slightly lesser split at 55-45, but it was enough to make the fight take place.
“That little respect that I had or that we had, it’s been lost,” Canelo said. “They disrespected me for everything they have been saying, everything they have been doing, all their actions. Now it’s different. It’s personal.”
The way that Golovkin looked during Tuesday’s press conference, he appeared angry and not in the mood to play around. Golovkin wasn’t smiling at all, which is uncharacteristic of him, as he’s usually a very pleasant person during the buildup of his fights. The way that Golovkin was glaring at the cameras, it appears that he’s going to go right after Canelo on September 15 and look to take him out as fast as possible. It’s a different Golovkin this time. Unlike the previous fight, Golovkin didn’t start training camp looking flabby and out of shape. Golovkin stayed in shape after dispatching Vanes Martirosyan on May 5, and it’s clear that he wants to score a knockout this time around. Golovkin no longer trusts the judges to give him a decision if he out-boxes Canelo like he did the last time they fought.
During the news conference on Tuesday, Canelo opted not to talk about him testing positive twice for clenbuterol. It’s too bad because it would have given him a good opportunity to explain it to his boxing fans why he came up positive not just once but twice for clenbuterol. The fans would have been very interested in hearing Canelo’s excuse for why he would test positive for a potent performance enhancing substance like clenbuterol, which is used by some athletes to improve their stamina.
“I think Canelo’s team, by doing what they did, and they lost some respect from their fans, but it’s not important,”
Sanchez seems to be the guy that will be doing the heavy lifting in the attracting interest in the Canelo-GGG II fight. Sanchez seems to know exactly what to say to make Canelo angry. Last Tuesday was no exception. Sanchez questioned Canelo’s courage and called him a runner. Aside from Sanchez, Canelo and Golovkin had almost nothing to say, and it made things kind of dull at the press conference. Despite
Sanchez calling Canelo a runner and questioning his courage, the Golden Boy star said he was satisfied fin how he fought Golovkin the last time they fought each other last year. I’m not sure that the boxing fans were too pleased with the way that Canelo fought, as it was boring to watch him run to his left all night long to try and evade the pressure from Golovkin.
“I did my fight. I did what I set out to do,” Canelo said about how he fought GGG last September.” I did what I trained to do, but I did a great fight. This man [Sanchez] just likes to talk. He likes to talk a lot and bring up every excuse possible, but you’ll see on Sept. 15 what Canelo Alvarez is all about and what he’s capable of doing.”
Canelo not agreeing to do face-offs with Golovkin to help sell the fight is arguably more than a bit childish. It’s an odd way of getting back and Triple G by choosing not to faceoff with him to get boxing fans interested in the fight. If Canelo didn’t want to fight Golovkin, then he shouldn’t have agreed to fight him in the rematch. The news conference this week on satellite is a poor substitute for a press conference with both guys staring face to face and talking trash. There was absolutely not energy between Canelo and Golovkin on Tuesday during the satellite news conference, which isn’t surprising because they weren’t facing each other.
“We already got the tour and we already got the promotion,” Canelo said. “[Meeting face to face] wasn’t necessary for this one. But I’ll see him very soon. I did it for the fans. This is the fight you wanted to see and, come Sept. 15, I can assure you it will be a much better fight than what you would have seen in May,” Canelo said.
Canelo says he did the rematch with Golovkin for the fans, but it’s more likely the main reason he did it is because he had to in order to clear up his reputation. Canelo couldn’t walk away from a second fight against Golovkin after the controversy surrounding the previous one and the two positive tests for clenbuterol. It would have been a bad career move on Canelo‘s part if he tried to walk away from GGG fight without facing him a second time to show the boxing fan that he’s the better fighter of the two.