By Sean Jones: Mikey Garcia and trainer Robert Garcia are both picking Saul Canelo Alvarez to defeat Gennady Golovkin in their rematch on September 15. Mikey thinks that Canelo’s intelligence will be too much for the unbeaten Golovkin (38-0-1, 34 KOs), who he feels can’t change much from what he did in his previous fight against the Mexican star last September.
Robert Garcia sees it as a hard fight for Canelo, but he feels he’ll win a decision over GGG. Robert feels that Canelo has felt Golovkin’s power from the first fight, and he now knows he can take it without getting hurt. Robert thinks Canelo, 28, has gotten better in his 12 months out of the ring since his last fight with GGG. Robert believes that Golovkin has aged in the 12 months. However, Golovkin didn’t look older in his recent fight in stopping Vanes Martirosyan in the 2nd round on May 5. Golovkin looked like the same fighter he was before.
“I think Canelo wins, he will box intelligently, and he will win a decision,” Mikey said to ESPN Desportes. ”Golovkin, I think there is not much that can change. He will come with attack and heart, but Canelo will win that fight,” said Mikey.
It almost sounds like wishful thinking on Mikey’s part, because in the first fight, Canelo didn’t show much heart at all. He looked like he was in survival mode, trying not to get knocked out. Canelo was running from Golovkin and staying on the ropes like an older fighter or sparring partner would. Canelo didn’t look like a championship level fighter and he certainly didn’t look intelligent. He just looked like he was trying to stall the fight out to make sure it went 12 rounds.
Canelo did a good job of getting out of the way of Golovkin’s punches when he was against he ropes last year, but when he was coming forward, he was always getting hit. Canelo did not do a good job of avoiding Golovkin’s shots when he was in the center of the ring for some reason. It was only when Canelo was against the ropes that he was able to lean away from his punches. Canelo was getting worked over by Golovkin’s jab when he was against then ropes, and he looked tired. It was a bad look for the younger fighter Canelo, because he was getting outworked by Golovkin and embarrassed.
Golovkin can make this a really easy fight for himself if he goes all out in the early going, and takes whatever blows he has to in order to tire Canelo out. If Golovkin simply stays on Canelo the way that Aaron Pryor used to do with his opponents, he’ll wear him down and knock him out within 4 rounds. As bad as Canelo’s conditioning is, he won’t be able to make it past the 4th round if Golovkin attacks him without letup. Canelo is younger than Golovkin at 28, but in terms of his cardiovascular system, he’s far, far older than him in my view. Canelo fights like a fighter in his 40s, and he doesn’t look at all young at his age. Canelo looks older than his 28 years. I don’t know if he’s had a hard life, but he’s starting to age rapidly. The way Canelo gasses out is like a fighter that is much older than someone in his 20s, and I don’t think that’s something he’ll ever be able to change no matter what effort he puts in to improve that area.
Regardless of what Mikey says, Golovkin is the favorite with the odds-makers over Canelo. The reason for that is simple. Golovkin appeared to win the first fight with Canelo by 4 to 5 rounds last year on September 16 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. That was with Golovkin fighting an ultra-conservative manner by not mixing it up with Canelo, and mostly staying on the outside for 12 rounds. Even with that approach to the fight, Golovkin had Canelo looking red in the face and incredibly tired from the third round on. In the rematch, Golovkin is expected to press the attack much more by forcing Canelo to fight hard in every second of each round. The results are likely going to be bad for the short 5’8” Canelo, who clearly doesn’t belong at middleweight. In the last fight, Canelo looked like a pumped up junior middleweight. Although Canelo had more size that Golovkin that fight, he didn’t have the height or reach to get to him. Canelo looked like another Vinny Pazienza type of fighter with all the muscle that he packed on for the fight. Canelo was able to look good in spurts when Golovkin was only occasionally pressing him. But once Golovkin started to take the fight to Canelo in the second half of the contest, the Mexican fighter looked exhausted and ineffective. Canelo’s power disappeared when pressed
”Canelo takes the win, not easily,” said Robert to ESPN Deportes. ”He is young, he matured more in a year while Golovkin aged. They are advantages that Canelo must take advantage of.”
I don’t think Canelo has any chance of beating GGG unless he’s able to stay in the pocket, fight at a fast pace and throw more punches than he did last time he fought him. Golovkin exposed a huge flaw in Canelo’s game last September by showing how quickly he would fatigue when pressed in each round. Canelo was given a lot of credit for being more aggressive in rounds 10, 11 and 12. However, if you look closely at those rounds, Canelo was only fighting hard in the first 45 seconds. Canelo would then get tired and either rest on the ropes or run to his left to escape Golovkin’s pressure and stall out the rounds. It was the same pattern we had seen from Canelo in the previous nine rounds. Canelo was only able to fight hard at the start of the round. He would then get red in the face from fatigue and be forced to run. I don’t think that’s going to change in the rematch. In last Sunday’s media workout in Los Angeles, Canelo attempted to show that he’s capable of fighting hard for a prolonged period of time by throwing sustained combinations into the mitts of his trainer Eddy Reynoso. I don’t think that proved anything though. Canelo is going to likely get fatigued from being pressed by Golovkin, because he’ll be tensing up constantly to take GGG’s big power shots. That takes a lot of energy out of a fighter, especially one that has ALWAYS had cardiovascular problems since the first fight of his career. Canelo is a good fighter, but he wasn’t built for fast paced fights. That’s the reality of it. Canelo is one of those fighters that does well if he can stampede a smaller fighter by fighting in spurts, but against a bigger guy with a good cardiovascular system, Canelo is at the mercy of them.