By Sean Jones: Eddie Hean revealed this week the gauntlet he wants Canelo Alvarez to run in consecutive fights in his next three contests beginning with the still dangerous Gennadiy Golovkin on September 17th in Las Vegas.
If Canelo beats the 40-year-old Golovkin (42-1-1, 37 KO) and that’s a big IF, Hearn plans on putting the Mexican superstar back in with WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitriy Bivol, and then David Benavidez, the fighter that many boxing fans believe he’s been ducking for the last two years.
Of course, if Canelo (57-2-2, 39 KOs) can’t fix the fatigue issues that Bivol exposed last May, he will not beat Golovkin, and he’ll take a beating once he gasses out.
Canelo was exhausted after two rounds against Bivol, unable to throw more than a handful of punches each round and spending a lot of time with his back against the ropes eating a steady diet of combinations shoved down his gullet by the unbeaten 175-lb champion.
Hearn has picked out Golovkin for Canelo to fight as a confidence-booster, believing that the Kazakh fighter is now too old to put up the kind of resistance he did in their first two fights, which boxing fans believe were both won by GGG.
Sean Jones believes Hearn’s decision to match Canelo against Golovkin will backfire, with GGG working over the former four-division world champion after he gasses out after two or three rounds.
The Canelo that we knew of from four to six years ago is GONE, replaced by a slower, easier-to-hit fighter with deteriorated reflexes and terrible stamina.
Now that Canelo’s speed, work rate, and stamina have tanked, he will be a sitting duck for Golovkin to carpet bomb him with his huge shots on September 17th.
“Gennadiy Golovkin, Dmitry Bivol, and I think [David] Benavidez is a big fight, in time,” said promoter Eddie Hearn to DAZN, listing the three fights he’d like to have Canelo take after GGG.
“Once [David Benavidez] fights a genuine elite fighter, in terms of size, I’d [like to match him against Canelo],” said Hearn.
Sean Jones hates to break this to Hearn. Still, Canelo will need to be dragged kicking & screaming into the ring to fight Benavidez (26-0, 23 KOs) because he’s NEVER going to mix it up with that talented super middleweight contender willingly.
“When people talk about how Canelo should fight Benavidez and [Jermall] Charlo, which would be voluntary defenses of his 168-pound titles, it doesn’t stoke anything in Canelo,” Hearn continued.
“When we talk about Bivol, Canelo likes the idea of going up to 175 lbs and challenging someone,” said Hearn.
Canelo’s excuse for loss to Bivol:
“I just get tired. I try to do something, and my body doesn’t respond. A lot of things I need to do in my life, to change in my life,” said Canelo when asked WHY he lost to WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol.
