By Dan Ambrose: Tim Bradley is predicting a pure slaughter by Canelo Alvarez when he faces Gennadiy Golovkin in their trilogy match next month on September 17th in Las Vegas.
What was a competitive rivalry is expected to be a complete mismatch, the way that the 40-year-old Golovkin (42-1-1, 37 KOs) has aged during the last four years since he fought Canelo (57-2-2, 39 KOs) in 2018.
It’s not just the aging that has had a negative impact on Golovkin’s game. His decision to fight only rarely against sublevel opposition in the last four years is going to hurt his game big time when he gets in there with Canelo.
It’s going to be a tremendous shock to Golovkin’s system to go from fighting the likes of Steve Rolls, Kamil Szeremeta, and Ryota Murata to taking on Canelo, who is in the prime of his career at 31.
“I don’t know, but I can tell you that Canelo is going to beat the brakes off GGG. I’m just letting y’all know right now,” said Tim Bradley to Fighthype about his view on the September 17th trilogy fight between Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin.
“Canelo is coming hungry. One thing I know about Canelo, he’s working his tail off. He can’t afford another loss. Two back-to-back losses. Canelo is coming back harder than ever.
“I think GGG, being older like he is, he’ll be tough if he gets past the first four rounds. He’s got to get past the first four rounds. Canelo will come out hot, fast, and is going to pour those combinations on him, and he’s going to break his a** down to the body.
“We’ll see if he gets him out of there, but I’m seeing a Canelo stoppage late or just a straight beat down for 12 rounds.
“Should he pursue the rematch? I think he’s going to want to,” said Bradley about Canelo facing WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol in a rematch next year. “I mean, he’s going to want to.
“He’s definitely going to have to run that back, but he’s definitely going to have to make some changes. Bivol is tough, and Bivol can fight the same way, the same exact way,” said Bradley.
The way that Bivol beat Canelo in their fight on May 7th, there’s little chance the Mexican star will be able to turn things around, apart from a good old-fashioned controversial decision in Las Vegas.
With the three outrageously bad scores of 115-113 x 3 that the judges turned in for the Canelo-Bivol fight, we almost saw a robbery. In reality, Canelo fought well enough to win two rounds at best, and even then, those were a station where Bivol eased up on him.
“Canelo will have to do something different other than to punch the shoulder and try and break him down with the high guard and try and entice him to punch and land his own offense,” said Bradley.
“We’ll see. It’s a good fight, a tough fight. Canelo has got cojones. That boy has got some cojones, and he’s great for boxing. If he’s going to run it back, run it back, why not? It’s all good. Run it back,” said Bradley about Canelo potentially fighting Bivol again.
