By Sean Jones: Canelo Alvarez is off to an early start with the odds-makers, who have him as the favorite for his September trilogy match against Gennadiy Golovkin. Canelo and GGG reportedly reached a financial agreement to fight on September 12 at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Canelo is the favorite at -260 over Golovkin at +200, according to Betonline.
GGG hasn’t looked good lately
Golovkin will be looking to put on a “Big drama show” against Canelo if his body permits him
Golovkin has been hampered by a calf injury, which kept him from defending his IBF middleweight title against Kamil Szeremeta. GGG is scheduled to defend against Szeremeta (21-0, 5 KOs) on June 13.
That fight, as well as WBA ‘regular super-middleweight champion Canelo’s interim unification against WBO champ Billy Joe Saunders, are up in the air right now. It wouldn’t be surprising if neither of those fights takes place.
IBF middleweight champion Golovkin (40-1-1, 35 KOs) is coming off of the hardest fight of his career in his narrow 12 round unanimous decision win over Sergiy Derevyanchenko last October. That a lot harder for GGG than his two bouts against Canelo and his 2010 match against Kassim Ouma. In the eyes of fans, Golovkin didn’t lose his two fights with Canelo but did appear to lose to Derevyancehnko.
Some boxing fans are blaming the 37-year-old Golovkin’s less than spectacular performance against Derevyanchenko on his age, but a better explanation is the fact that he ran into a very good fighter. Derevyanchenko fought GGG with more aggression than Canelo did and showed that he’s a body puncher than Alvarez with the way he attacked Golovkin’d midsection.
While the date of the fight perhaps doesn’t mean much given the situation with the coronavirus pandemic running rampant in the U.S, infecting people left and right, it’s still positive that fight is finally agreed on. Let’s just hope the fight takes place in 2020. It would be a shame if the coronavirus stays around for a couple of years, and keeps Canelo and Golovkin from fighting until 2021 or 2022.
Third Canelo vs. Golovkin fight will decide who the better fighter is
Presumably, the Canelo vs. Golovkin rubber match will decide once and for all who the better fighter is between them. As long as the fight doesn’t end in controversy like the first two bouts, the third fight should show who the better fighter of the two.
In the two Canelo-GGG fights, Canelo has a 1-0-1 record. However, boxing fans viewed the fight differently. They see Golovkin up 1-0-1 due to controversial scoring of his first against Canelo in which appeared to beat him, but the Nevada judges scored it a 12 round draw.
Due to the questionable scoring from BOTH Canelo-Golovkin fights, you can argue that it’s as if those fights never took place. The scoring was so bad in the two fights that third will be the one that actually counts. You can’t count the first two fights because boxing fans totally disagreed with the Nevada judges’ scoring.
Canelo (53-1-2, 36 KOs) has looked good recently in beating WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev, Danny Jacobs and Rocky Fielding in his last 3 contests since beating GGG in 2018. The way Alvarez looked against Kovalev and Jacobs showed that he’s still in the prime of his career.
Although Kovalev looked usually weak against Canelo, you still have to give the Golden Boy star credit for beating him. Obviously, it would have meant a lot more had Canelo taken on IBF/WBC light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev (15-0, 15 KOs) instead of Kovalev, but that was his and his team’s decision to go after the faded “Krusher.’
GGG needs to go all out for a knockout
Golovkin should know by now that he’s not going to win a decision against ‘Face of Boxing’ Canelo, which is why he should just go all out in the third fight. The only fighters that have fought Canelo aggressively by pushing a fast pace were Jose Miguel Cotto and Liam Smith. They both had a lot of success before running out of gas and getting stopped.
In looking at the two Canelo-Golovkin fights, it’s pretty clear that GGG isn’t going to win a decision against the popular Mexican star. So as long as Golovkin approaches the fight with his eyes open on his chances of winning, he can plan accordingly. What’s worked for Golovkin in the past is when he’s unloaded on Canelo with nonstop punches.
We saw Golovkin do that in the final round of his first fight with Canelo, and he had him exhausted and stumbling at the end. If Golovkin had studied Canelo’s fights from the past, he’d have noticed that he needs rest breaks. Canelo fights in spurts and then rests. The fighters that have done well against Canelo have kept him from resting.
if Golovkin goes after Canelo hard in the first three rounds and doesn’t stop punching for a second, he’ll wear him out and score a stoppage. Canelo is a counter puncher with a bad engine. Counter punchers are only effective when their opponents attack them in spurts. The way to beat them is to force a fast pace and burn them out.
