By Sean Jones: Bernard Hopkins is predicting a knockout victory for Canelo Alvarez in his trilogy match against Gennadiy Golovkin. For that reason, Hopkins says he has no interest in seeing Canelo (53-1-2, 36 KOs) face GGG a third time. As far as Hopkins is concerned, Canelo has beaten Golovkin (40-1-1, 35 KOs), and he’ll KO him in the third fight.
What we’ve seen in the first two Canelo-Golovkin fights is that Canelo couldn’t hurt GGG with his power shots. Secondly, Canelo didn’t have the gas tank to press hard enough in a sustained manner to bother Golovkin.
Fighting in short bursts, which is Canelo’s specialty, failed to get the job done. That fighting style is something that won’t change in a third match or even a fourth one against Golovkin.
The fact of the matter is Canelo doesn’t have the cardiovascular system to fight in a sustained manner. When Canelo does throw more than a handful of punches, his face turns red, and he needs to back up against the ropes and rest. Stamina-wise, Canelo can’t fight hard enough to knock out a fighter like Golovkin or many of the other middleweights in the division.
The guys that Canelo does knockout are fighters with chin problems like Amir Khan, Sergey Kovalev, and Rocky Fielding. Those guys had a history of being knocked out well before they ever fought Canelo.
Canelo doesn’t like fighting GGG for a reason. It’s hard work for Canelo each time he’s faced GGG, and a lot of boxing fans think he should have lost both fights to Kazakhstan fighter.
Hopkins predicting KO win for Canelo
“Canelo and GGG who’s fights are penciled in for September,” said Chris Mannix to DAZN USA. “Former middleweight great Bernard Hopkins had this to say about their trilogy fight: ‘I think Canelo has the blueprint definitely from the second fight to end it early. Okay, you beat him twice; now you knocked him out the third time.’ Do you agree with Bernard Hopkins?”
“How can I not agree with ‘The Executioner’ to execute a game plan?” said Sergio Mora on Hopkins predicting a knockout victory for Canelo over Golovkin in their trilogy match. “This is a living legend in Bernard Hopkins. He knows better than anybody. I agree. Twenty-four rounds, these guys know each other too well. We have to favor the younger, fresher fighter Canelo for a stoppage.
“He will be going for a stoppage. They’ll both will be going for the knockout. Golovkin, we know he has the power to end this fight early as well. There’s too much bad blood, too much animosity.
“They’ve been avoiding each other. Canelo has been trying to move away from this fight, and Golovkin has been pursuing it. Now they’re going to have to wait a little bit longer, but the anticipation, the frustration, the anger that’s pent up, I think this fight ends by knockout.”
It sounds like wishful thinking on Hopkins of Golden Boy Promotions’ part in talking about Canelo knocking out Golovkin. Canelo won’t knock out Golovkin. The only one that has a chance there of scoring a knockout is Golovkin, but he probably won’t do it either because he doesn’t fight aggressively enough against Canelo to hurt him.
Sergey Kovalev showed how to get the better of Canelo in the eighth round of their fight last November. He on the attack and had Canelo looking shaky.
Canelo isn’t consistent enough to knockout Golovkin
“Yeah, I think you’re right that this fight will be a case of bad blood vs. bad blood, but what in Golovkin’s history has shown you that he’s likely to get knocked out?” said Mannix. “I mean, the guy was hurt for the first time against Sergiy Derevyanchenko, but he wasn’t close to getting knocked out in that fight.
What we know about Canelo Alvarez in most of his high-profile fights, be it against Erislandy Lara, Austin Trout, and his two fights against Golovkin, he hasn’t ended those fights by knockout. Throw in Daniel Jacobs in that mix as well. I can see Canelo dominating, but I don’t see him active enough to stop Golovkin.
“And I don’t think he throws hard enough to have Golovkin’s iron-chin tested to the point where he’s going to go down, and he’s not going to be able to get up. I think Canelo is the favorite, deservedly so, but knocking out Golovkin is an incredibly tough task.”
Canelo will never have the gas tank to the knockout Golovkin or any fighter with a chin and the power to make him hesitant to attack all out. In looking at how Canelo fought Kovalev, he would stand no chance against guys like David Benavidez, Artur Beterbiev, Callum Smith, Caleb Plant, or Dmitry Bivol.
Canelo is too small, and he is conditioning is subpar for him to take on the more prominent fighters. Had Kovalev been younger, he would have probably beaten Canelo with ease. Unfortunately for Kovalev, he’s an old 36, and his best days are in the rearview mirror. Kovalev isn’t the fighter he once was 4,000 yesterdays ago.
Bodyshots are the only way Golovkin can be hurt
“Iron-chin, yes, but as we saw in his last fight against Derevyanchenko, it’s a little bit soft down here [midsection], and that body shot is not going to forget,” said Mora. “So I think Canelo, who is an explosive body puncher, he saw that, and he knows that, and he’s going to go straight for that. He’s going to be attacking the body, which is naturally going to bring down the hands, the arms, and the elbows.
“That can open up a shot up there [head]. But the more explosive puncher is Canelo. The faster hands are Canelo. I think the power still edges out to Golovkin. I’m not saying that Golovkin doesn’t have a puncher’s chance. Of course, he has destructive power behind him and the high knockout ratio.
“This fight will end, the writing’s on the wall. I have to lean towards Canelo’s faster hands, but I’m not looking past Golovkin to hurt Canelo either. I think these guys are going towards each other like two trains. One of them will collide, and one of them will not see the end of the 12th round.”
In theory, body shots could work for Canelo to hurt Golovkin if he could throw enough of them in succession without turning red in the face, and needing a rest break. Canelo can’t do it. After he throws a handful of punches, he looks like he needs oxygen administered. He then is forced to back off and take a rest break.
If Golovkin understood that the way to beat Canelo is to force him to fight for a full three minutes of each round, he would beat him without the judges playing a role.
Canelo has the edge in the third fight
“I feel like these guys are so familiar with each other at this point,” said Mannix of GGG and Canelo. “They’ve fought 24 rounds against each other, and they know what to expect.
“You can see it going a little more lopsided towards Canelo because of the stages they are in their respective careers, but I think all these fights, no matter how many times they fight, will be destined to be the same way. Really entertaining fights with neither fighter getting knocked down and neither fighter getting knocked out.”
It’s clear that Canelo has the edge in the third fight with GGG because of two things. The fight is expected to take place in Las Vegas, where Canelo is nearly unbeatable. Secondly, Golovkin cannot fight in a sustained manner to hurt Canelo.
Instead of trying to knock out Canelo by bombarding him with repeated shots, Golovkin loads up on single punches and gives him the chance to land his counters.
GGG needs to fight like Aaron Pryor to beat Canelo
Golovkin needs to fight like Aaron Pryor for him to knock out Canelo. For fans that have never seen Pryor fight, he was a fighter that was known for throwing nonstop punches. He would wear down his opponents by not letting up. That style of fighting would give Canelo a lot of problems. If Golovkin could fight like Pryor, his issues with the judges would be over.
