By Jim Dower: Amir Khan is predicting a knockout victory for Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin in the late rounds against Saul Canelo Alvarez in their rematch this Saturday night on September 15 on HBO pay-per-view at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Khan says Canelo (49-1-2, 34 KOs) has lost a lot of physical size in his physique since his previous fight against Gennady last year in September. Khan isn’t sure whether Canelo’s two positive tests for the performance enhancing substance clenbuterol was accidental or on purpose, but he feels that if it was intentional on his part, then he won’t feel as strong and he won’t have the same self-confidence as he did last time he Golovkin. Khan says Golovkin (38-0-1, 34 KOs) will knock Canelo out if the Mexican fighter doesn’t have the same power and confidence as last time they fought each other.
Khan said this to IFL TV in analyzing the Canelo vs. GGG 2 fight for this Saturday:
“Good fight. When a fighter has been taking clenbuterol and he’s been tested [positive]. He’s going to come back and he’s always going to be thinking, ‘I used to take that.’ He’s not going to feel as strong. Confidence-wise, it’s going to knock him. If he’s not taking the same stuff as he was taking before, it will affect him mentally. I don’t know if he was taking it or not taking it or if he was taking it by accident, but he got caught twice with the same substance. It will affect you mentally.”
Canelo tested negative for clenbuterol for the first fight with GGG last September. Alvarez’s two positive tests were from earlier this year in February when he was training for the May 5th rematch. Some boxing fans feel that Canelo was on clenbuterol for the first fight with GGG. Never the less, Canelo tested negative in the drug tests for that fight so you can’t say that he was on. What may hurt Canelo though for the rematch with GGG is his diminished size. Canelo looks smaller than he was last time, and that might hurt his chances of beating Golovkin, who has always done well when fighting smaller fighter during his career.
Golovkin crushed the 5’9” Kell Brook and the 5’7” Curtis Stevens. The 5’8” Canelo is even shorter than Brook. Therefore, it’s going to be harder for Canelo to compete against the 5’10 ½” Golovkin without the musculature that he had in the first fight. It’s a wrong time for Canelo to lose muscle mass. Canelo came close to beating Golovkin in the first fight with his huge bodybuilder-like physique. Common sense would tell you that it’s not smart for Canelo to deviate from what he did in the first fight with Triple G. All Canelo needed to beat Golovkin last time would have been for him to throw a few more punches each round and to stay off the ropes. Canelo didn’t need to lose massive muscle weight for him to have a chance of beating GGG. Of course, a lot of boxing fans that see the difference in Canelo’s physique believe that it’s because he’s off the clenbuterol and that he’s not going to be as effective in the rematch with Golovkin as he was in the previous fight.
”With him going into the fight with GGG, a lot of people see size difference,” Khan said about Canelo. ”You can see a massive size difference from the last fight and this fight. So let’s see. But if he’s [Canelo] off and he was on clenbuterol last time and he’s off of it for this fight, I see GGG stopping Canelo in the later rounds,” Khan said.
We’ll see if Canelo has put on muscle since his recent public workout several weeks ago. Canelo looked thin and small for that workout, but it’s possible that he’s bulked up since then.