Golovkin says third fight with Canelo will be “honest”

By Boxing News - 04/24/2019 - Comments

Image: Golovkin says third fight with Canelo will be "honest"

By Barry Holbrook: Gennady Golovkin is still counting on Saul Canelo Alvarez meeting him for a third fight this September on DAZN, despite the Mexican star saying that GGG must have a world title in his possession before he’ll consider fighting him in a trilogy contest.

GGG says his third fight with the Golden Boy Promotions star Canelo will be “decisive” and “honest.” Just what Golovkin means by his comment about the results of the trilogy fight with Alvarez is anyone’s guess.

Golovkin could be talking about the judging for the fight and/or it could also mean drug testing to the fullest to make sure there are no positive tests for clenbuterol or any other performance enhancing substances. Canelo tested positive for clenbuterol last year, and was suspended by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

Golovkin won’t have a world title by September, so Canelo will need to fight him without the belt or not at all. Golovkin (38-1-1, 34 KOs) thinks Canelo (51-1-2, 35 KOs) will fight him, because it’s what the boxing public wants and it’s also what DAZN wants as well. For Canelo to reject the fans and DAZN by turning his back on Golovkin, it would look bad

“It’s important for everybody. For DAZN, for the people, for me, for him,” Golovkin said to Fighhub about him fighting Canelo a third time.

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If Canelo doesn’t face Golovkin in September, he has options, but he would need to take on someone good like Jermall Charlo or Demetrius Andrade to interest the boxing public in a match against someone from the middleweight division. A rematch with Daniel Jacobs would be a possibility for Canelo if he loses to him next month on May 4 or if their fight results are controversial like the two Canelo-Golovkin fights were.

If Canelo chooses not to fight GGG in September, and instead takes a soft fight against the likes of David Lemieux or some other fighter that has no chance of beating him, then he’ll be shooting himself in the foot and hurting DAZN at the same time. They’re paying Canelo a massive amount of money with their $365 million contract. They’re not giving Canelo all that money so that he can cherry-pick easy marks for him to beat each time out. They want to see Canelo fight guys like Golovkin, because that’s a fight that still has a good chance of bringing in a lot of subscribers.

“Probably. I hope so,” Golovkin said when asked if he thinks Canelo will fight him again in September. “He said it. He’s not the promoter. He’s not a partner to DAZN. He’s a fighter. I remember my situation — he had nothing, I had all the belts, why not? Not because I gave him a chance, just it’s not correct, ‘If I don’t have a belt, he doesn’t want to fight me.’ I think we’re going to have that fight. It will be different and it will be a more definitive result — and it will be honest,” Golovkin said.

To make sure the fight is definitive, Golovkin need to batter Canelo to the point of knocking him out. He already found out the hard way that he won’t get a decision if he beats him by say four rounds. Golovkin has to really put it on Canelo to the point where he either knocks him out or beats him so decisively that the results will be judge proof. It’s pretty obvious that Canelo and his promoters at Golden Boy will attempt to get the third fight in Las Vegas at the T-Mobile Area. That’ll make it hard on Golovkin potentially to win a decision if the third fight is taken place there.

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Canelo having Golovkin win a world title before he agrees to fight him again would look odd. Canelo was a belt-less fighter when he challenged Golovkin in 2017, and he was still given a world title shot. For Canelo to change the rules simply because he’s a world champion now and GGG the challenger, would come across like he’s playing games and not really interested in the third fight with him. DAZN might not have been aware that Canelo would drag his feet for a third fight with Golovkin when they signed him to a big $365 million contract. If DAZN had know that Canelo didn’t want a third fight with GGG, would they have still signed him?

“If he wants to, why not? I think Kovalev is ready for that fight and if Canelo is ready for Kovalev, why not?” Golovkin said about Canelo potentially fighting WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev in the future.

It’s a bad fight for Canelo if he moves up to light heavyweight to take on Kovalev. The match would attract a lot of interest from boxing fans, so that’s a possible. Would Canelo actually make that fight? It’s one thing for Canelo to take about wanting to fight Kovalev, and another thing entirely different for him to take it. Kovalev, 6’0″, has the height, weight, range and mobility to handle the 5’8″ Canelo. You can understand why Canelo might want to take the fight. Andre Ward got the better of Kovalev by crowding him, grappling with him to tire him out, and hitting him with body shots. Canelo is a good inside fighter, and punches to the body well. In theory, Canelo could do a lot of the same things that Ward did against Kovalev if he can crowd him, and forced him to wrestle or defend on the inside. Kovalev made adjustments in his last fight against Eleider Alvarez to avoid being mauled on the inside. Kovalev used movement to evade Eleider, and to prevent him from being able to get in close to hurt him like he did in their first fight in 2018/

“I feel very comfortable at 160, but this guy fights at 168. We’re going to meet in the middle,” Golovkin said about fighting his opponent Steve Rolls at a catch-weight of 164 lbs on June 8 on DAZN.

Rolls has fought a lot at middleweight. He’s big enough to fight at super middleweight, but he’s still a middleweight. Golovkin won’t be out-sized by Rolls like he might if he were to take on a big super middleweight like 6’3″ Callum Smith or 6’2″ David Benavidez Jr.