By Sean Jones: Saul Canelo Alvarez is having a hard time dealing with Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez, who has consistently been telling the boxing media that the red-haired Golden Boy star ran the entire time in the first fight with Triple G last September.
Canelo justifies all the movement he used against Golovkin as him boxing him and fighting smart. However, Canelo’s movement cost him the chance of winning the fight due it appearing that he was afraid to stand and fight Golovkin. There’s smart movement and there’s fear-based movement. Canelo’s movement appeared to be the latter. He looked terrified of Golovkin, and he also looked exhausted from the 3rd round.
Canelo did fight well in tiny spurts, but he was in full retreat in 80 percent of the fight and he looked like the clear loser. The fight took place in Las Vegas, Nevada at the T-Mobile Arena, which is why many fans believe that Canelo was given a 12 round draw instead of a lopsided 12 round decision loss.
Canelo says he’s gained confidence from his first fight against Golovkin, and he believes he can use the things that he learned from that affair for the second one. The success that Canelo had in the fight last September was fleeting. It wasn’t continuous. Golovkin was controlling the rounds from round 3. Canelo would land two or three hard shots in each round, but he was getting outworked by a huge margin in every round. The judges that gave Canelo rounds were scoring the rounds based on him landing a tiny amount of shots, and then going into full retreat mode after the first moments of the round. While it was impressive to see Canelo land a couple of shots at the start of the rounds, it was alarming to see him running from Golovkin in the last 2 ½ minutes of the rounds.
Canelo, 27, was the far younger fighter than the 36-year-old Golovkin, and he was fighting in his own venue in Las Vegas. This wasn’t GGG’s venue. This was Canelo’s desired venue, and he should have been able to win the fight if he’d stood his ground and fought Golovkin. For some reason, Canelo wouldn’t do that. He stayed on the run and ruined his chances of winning. Moreover, Canelo made the three judges look bad by them giving him a draw that the boxing public didn’t agree with. The next batch of judges for the rematch are going to need to do a better job than the first one if they don’t want to be embarrassed in a similar manner and have a spotlight put on them too.
“It’s one thing to be coming forward like a donkey and it’s another thing to be moving, dodging punches, counter-punching, and even staying on the ropes without him hitting you,” Canelo said. ”The first fight has has given me the confidence that I will win this fight. If I work him well throughout the fight, I can knock him out.”
I doubt that Canelo will knock GGG out on September 15 in their rematch on HBO PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. It would be wiser for Canelo to try and throw more punches and try and outwork Golovkin. It would be wiser for Canelo to try and follow in the footsteps of famous Mexican fighters like Salvador Sanchez and Julio Cesar Chavez. Those fighters weren’t runners. They stood and fought their opponents and won in the old fashioned way. Canelo seems to have been heavily influenced by his fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013. Ever since that fight, Canelo has been a mover when facing good opposition.
”He [Abel Sanchez] doesn’t know what boxing is,” Canelo said in continuing to fire back at Golovkin’s trainer for saying that he lacks courage and is a runner, who doesn’t fight with the Mexican style. ”He doesn’t know what it is to have technique. He doesn’t know what it is to box or to move.”
Whether Canelo wants to admit it or not, the fact is he ran from Golovkin last time he fought him. Canelo wasn’t boxing him. He looked like he was trying to stall out the rounds due to a combination of stamina and fear-based issues. That’s the way it looked to me. Canelo fought like he lacked the confidence to stand and fight Golovkin. The middleweight division is a different animal than the lighter weight classes like welterweight. At middleweight, fighters are expected to bang with their opponents. They don’t win by getting on their bike and playing hit and run, hoping that the judges will give them a hometown decision. In the 160 pound weight class, fighters are expected to brawl with their opponents. That’s historically how things are done at middleweight. Canelo isn’t going to beat talented fighters like Golovkin and Jermall Charlo by playing hit and run for 12 rounds. Canelo is going to need to stand and fight these guys. If Canelo can’ do that, then his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions are going to need to match him more selectively against their fighters David Lemieux and Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan instead of the talented guys like GGG and Charlo. With Canelo’s style of fighting, he would be better off moving back down to 154 or 147 and using his size to beat the lighter guys in those weight classes. At middleweight, Canelo will be expected to fight his opponents and not just look to spoil for 12 rounds like we saw in his first fight against Golovkin.
”He [Abel Sanchez] doesn’t know what it means to adapt to the circumstances of a fight and not just go forward and throw punches,” Canelo said in trying to rationalist why he doesn’t want to brawl with Golovkin. ”What I do is box. I find it strange that someone who believes himself to be a great trainer does not know how to distinguish between having technique and what he’s saying [the running].”
Canelo can label his fighting style whatever he wants to, but the reality is he ran from GGG last September. The fight was frankly boring to watch due to Canelo’s movement and lack of interest in fighting GGG. If Canelo des the same thing in the rematch, it could turn into a real stinker. If that’s the case, it would be better off for Golovkin to move on and face a true middleweight like Charlo, Daniel Jacobs or Sergiy Derevyanchenko.