By Jeff Aranow: Saul Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin made their grand arrivals on Tuesday at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Golovkin is ready to defend his IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight titles on Saturday night on HBO PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The rematch is going to make Golovkin a fortune. GGG is estimated to make $48 million for the fight. This will be a big bump from the $20 million Golovkin made for his first fight against Canelo in September 2017. The fight brought in 1.4 million pay-per-view buys on HBO. The rematch could make considerably more. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya is throwing around 2 million buys. If that figure turns out to be true, then both fighters are going to make a massive amount of money.
Canelo brought in 2.2 million buys in his fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013. That was a fight involving one of the biggest superstars in the world in Mayweather. Golovkin isn’t anywhere near as popular as Mayweather, so it’s going to be difficult for the Caenlo-GGG 2 fight to hit 2 million buys. What hurts the promotion is Canelo’s two positive tests for clenbuterol last February. Golovkin received a 70-30 purse split for the first fight with Canelo. Golovkin will get 45 percent of the revenue for the rematch, which is less than what he wanted he wanted to make sure the fight took place.
Keys to victory for Golovkin:
– To ensure he gets the ‘W’ on Saturday, GGG needs to make the fight as ugly as possible. If Canelo’s punches are little more than slaps, which Golovkin said recently, then he should have no qualms about attacking him in a relentless manner
– Stay busy on offense. Don’t wait as much before throwing punches
– Throw body shots and lets of them
– Stay close to Canelo to cut his avenues of retreat
– Force Canelo to work the entire three minutes of each round
Golovkin is being motivated by his trainer Abel Sanchez to beat Canelo in such a manner that there’s no way that the judges can take the win away from him this time. Their fight last September was scored as a 12 round draw. Golovkin was too careful in waiting for the perfect moment to throw his shots. This helped slow down the pace of the fight enough for Canelo to get plenty of rest breaks. Canelo played defense against the ropes, impressing the judges by dodging Golovkin’s power shots and jabs. Canelo was able to land enough hard counters to win a lot of rounds despite being negative most of the fight and not proactive.
“I did lose all respect for him,” Golovkin said about Canelo to Yahoo Sports News. “Canelo is not the biggest name in boxing. I know my job. I know what people want to see. I know why they come. I will do my job.”
A year has gone by since the previous fight. Golovkin, 36, wanted to fight Canelo last December, but he didn’t want fight him again. It’s possible that the sole reason for Canelo turning down a fight against Golovkin in December was to age him some more, because he’s up there in age. If Canelo hadn’t tested
positive twice for clenbuterol, Golovkin would have had to wait eight months before facing him on May 5 of this year. Canelo’s six month suspension by the Nevada State Athletic Commission delayed the rematch by another four months. Golovkin will have had to wait an entire year for the second fight with Canelo. This is on top of the two years that GGG had to wait to get a fight against Canelo. Golovkin was 33 when he first started calling Canelo out, but he was told that the Mexican star needed to slowly acclimatize to the middleweight division.
GGG’s trainer Abel Sanchez wants him to know that he needs to fight a lot better in the rematch for him to get the win because he didn’t do enough in the previous fight. It’s not that Sanchez doesn’t think that Golovkin deserved the win. He thinks he didn’t do enough to make sure that the judges couldn’t take away his win.
“I have to make sure that he understands how bad he looked, how bad he looked in not knocking him out,” Sanchez said via badlefthook.com. “I’m going to drive that point home, because I need to [anger] him off. He has to do something that is so out of this world, that they can’t rob it from him again.”
Golovkin isn’t happy with the way he was treated by the judges last time. Although Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy Promotions were very interested in a rematch, the fight almost didn’t happen due to Golovkin insisting on a 50-50 split. Golovkin originally agreed to a
A lot of Mexican boxing fans are pulling for GGG to win on Saturday because they’re fans of him and his style of fighting, which he and Sanchez refer to as the ‘Mexican style.’ The fans are upset with Canelo because of his positive tests for clenbuterol. They see him a cheater and they, along with GGG, think he was in the wrong in testing positive for the banned substance and then failing to admit his guilt. Canelo wants to knock Golovkin out. But for him to do that, he’s going to need to take the fight to him this time and not just look to make him miss and land a few counter punches in each round. Canelo’s fighting style in the first fight was not conducive to score a knockout.
Canelo’s stamina will be key for him in this fight. He’s got to improve it for him to have a chance at winning. If Canelo can push harder in going after GGG, then he has a shot at beating him. It’s still unlikely that Canelo will be able to knockout Golovkin because his punch resistance is exceptional. Golovkin has never been knocked down as a pro and was never dropped in the amateurs. However, Golovkin is 36-years-old now. The 28-year-old Canelo has the youth on his size in this fight. What is unknown is how well Canelo can do at a reduced size from the first fight. If Canelo’s success in the first fight was based on him bulked up from clenbuterol, then it could be a different story if he lacks the size and punching power to stand in there against the naturally bigger and more powerful GGG.
Keys to victory for Canelo
– Fight in spurts like the last time against GGG.
– Be busy
– Use movement to reduce GGG’s chances to land
– Use head and torso movement on the ropes to reduce GGG’s connect rate
The first fight between Canelo and GGG was boring one due to the lack of exchanges. It wasn’t until the final seconds of the 12th round in which the two fighters mixed it up. That’s got to change in the rematch for the fight to have a conclusive winner. Canelo needs to stay off the ropes and do more than just try and make Golovkin miss. Golovkin was seen as the winner by the boxing public in the first fight, so it’s important for Canelo to make sure he does a lot more to show the fans that he wasn’t given a gift draw because of his popularity.
Golovkin has to be willing to get hit by Canelo for him to land enough shots to win. Golovkin is not going to win by playing it safe. Canelo was hitting Golovkin with shots, but he wasn’t able to land enough punches to make the rounds conclusive. Canelo was taking rest breaks and letting Golovkin take control of the rounds after the first minute. Canelo can’t do the same thing this time because the judges aren’t going to want to put their necks on the line by giving Canelo a win or a draw if he’s only trying to evade GGG after the first minute of the rounds.
