By Barry Holbrook: Gennady Golovkin’s former trainer Abel Sanchez says Golden Boy Promotions star Saul Canelo Alvarez doesn’t need GGG in order to continue to keep putting on great fights for fans. Golovkin (39-1-1, 35 KOs) is hoping to face Canelo in a trilogy fight for September on DAZN, but it’s up in the air whether that match will happen.
GGG in a good position to get Canelo fight for September
There’s a good chance that Golovkin could get the fight with Canelo now that Golden Boy has failed to get WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev to agree to a fight with the Mexican star. Kovalev was reportedly offered a $6 million deal to face Canelo for September 14, but it wasn’t agreed on.
The Russian knockout artist will now defend against his WBO mandatory Anthony Yarde on August 24 in Russia. Canelo and Kovalev could restart negotiations for a fight in December if everything goes well against Yarde.
Sanchez: Canelo will knockout Kovalev with a body shot
“Canelo seems to adapt well. I still think we beat him in the two fights with Gennady,” said former Golovkin trainer Abel Sanchez to Fighthype. Sanchez continues, “I see him beating Kovalev, and knocking him out with a body shot. I think that’s very, very possible with Canelo,” said Sanchez.
Kovalev’s inability to take body shots is pretty clear. In both of his fights with Andre Ward, Kovalev had problems when he took body shots. We saw the same thing from Kovalev in his loss to Eleider Alvarez in 2018. Kovalev has shown to have problems taking punches to the body, as we saw in his stoppage loss to Andre Ward in 2017. Canelo is arguably a better body puncher than Ward was during his career, and he’s a lot faster as well. Sanchez says he thinks Kovalev would taken out by a body shot from Canelo.
Golovkin never hit Canelo with a clean shot says Sanchez
“I think Kovalev won’t hit him with a clean shot,” said Sanchez. “We touched him with Gennady, but we never touched him with a clean shot. He’s got good defense, but most of all he’s got to want to fight. He wants to go in and do his thing. As long as he’s doing that, he’ll be a little faster than Kovalev. I think if he hits him to the body, he may stop him,” said Sanchez.
Golovkin hit Canelo with plenty of clean shots in the second fight last September. He hurt Canelo a couple of times in the later rounds of the fight, but he wasn’t able to follow up with anything substantial. The head movement of Alvarez made it difficult for Golovkin to land his power shots in both fights, and he rarely threw body shots.
Banks wants GGG to throw body shots
Golovkin’s new trainer Johnathon Banks noted the complete absence of body shots from GGG in his two fights with Canelo. Moreover, Banks didn’t like the way that Golovkin was backed up by the smaller fighter Canelo in their rematch last year.
Banks says Golovkin shouldn’t have given ground to Canelo, because he was the bigger, stronger guy. Both Golovkin and Sanchez need to take responsibility for that.
Sanchez thinks Canelo is holding grudge against GGG
“When I was with Gennady, we and our team, we said a lot of things that maybe he’s taken personal,” said Sanchez in talking about why Canelo doesn’t want to give Golovkin a trilogy fight. “That’s the game. That’s how you build things up. I hope they fight again. It was a good fight the first two times. If that’s the case [Canelo not ever facing GGG again], Canelo has a lot of arenas he can go down where he doesn’t need Gennady. But he’s taken a big leap up in [Sergey] Kovalev, and he’s taking a big leap in Callum Smith. Those are some tough fights. But he’s a young man, and he wants to be tested,” said Sanchez.
Canelo cannot afford to freeze Golovkin out infinitely for a trilogy fight, because DAZN wants that match. There’s a lot of money Canelo will make fighting Golovkin, and he’s going to need to bite the bullet and take the fight. DAZN wants it, and they’re paying Canelo his huge $365 million contract. Canelo needs to give them what they want. Take a mature approach to looking at what DAZN is asking from them, and go ahead and make the fight happen.
Alvarez needs to make the GGG fight
Canelo may not want to fight GGG again, but it’s what he signed up for when he inked a big contract with DAZN. Now it’s about keeping DAZN happy or at least it should be. That’s a fight that Canelo and Golden Boy should make as soon as possible starting in September. Kovalev is no longer available, and the options are slim once you eliminate him from the small list of potential opponents for Canelo.
WBO middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade put in a lackluster performance in his last fight in beating Maciej Sulecki. Andrade ruined his chances of getting the Canelo fight by choosing to box Sulecki instead of going out looking for a knockout. Demetrius started out strong against Sulecki in the first round, but then he inexplicably backed off and boxed him the rest of the way.
Sanchez: It’s going to be difficult to change GGG at 37
“If Johnathon [Banks] is going to change him, it’s going to take time. In a way the delay of the fight could be a good thing, because Johnathon gets to implement his version fighting. But it’s going to be difficult for [Golovkin] to change at 37,” said Sanchez.
As far as Sanchez is concerned, Golovkin may be stuck with the fighting style that he’s had his entire career. At 37, it’s late in the game for Golovkin to change how he’s always fought. His new trainer Banks seemed frustrated with his performance in his last fight against Steve Rolls on June 8 on DAZN.
Golovkin threw mainly single power shots, and rarely did he put his punches together in combination form. It turned out to be a harder fight than many boxing fans expected it to be. Banks wanted to see combination punching from Golovkin, but he failed to do that.
