By Allan Fox: Canelo Alvarez says his goal for Saturday’s fight is to score a knockout over Gennadiy Golovkin, but if it doesn’t happen, he’ll be content to go the 12 rounds.
It’s going to be difficult for Canelo (57-2-2, 39 KOs) to score a knockout in this fight because to stop a fighter like Golovkin, he’s going to need to put his punches together.
Throwing single shots and resting for 20 seconds isn’t going to work for Canelo. In his last fight against Dmitry Bivol, Canelo threw very few punches and looked fatigued early in the contest on May 7th.
Bivol was able to take advantage of Canelo’s low punch output and exhaustion by taking control of the fight after the first three rounds.
If Canelo isn’t able to KO Golovkin (42-1-1, 37 KOs), he’s going to need to pace himself because he can’t afford to punch himself out against a fighter that hits as hard as GGG does.
It’s safe to assume that Golovkin’s goal for this fight is to try and knock out Canelo so that the judges don’t have a chance to control the outcome.
Golovkin is the one that probably needs a knockout more than Canelo, as he’s been on the receiving end of two questionable decisions in his two encounters with the fan favorite Canelo in 2017 and 2018.
That’s not to say that Golovkin was perfect in either of those two fights, as his game plans were fundamentally flawed.
That’s what made the fight so tough for Golovkin because he chose to fight Canelo on the inside much of the time, and he lacked the skills to fight at a high level at that range.
The only reason Golovkin didn’t get totally worked over is that Canelo faded in the second half of both of those fights.
“That’s my goal for this fight [to score a knockout], but I’m going to keep my mind focused. If the knockout comes, that’s okay. If not, then I’m going to fight 12 rounds,” said Canelo Alvarez to the Media about his fight against Gennadiy Golovkin.
“I’ve been focusing on not committing those same errors, but I love boxing as much as I’ve always have. Of course, a little bit, but I feel great,” said Canelo when asked if he’s had to lose muscle going from 175 to 168 for this fight. “Where I feel my best is at 168.
“He did a really good job. He’s the same fighter. He’s strong; he takes punches, and he hits hard. He’s the same fighter,” said Canelo when asked about Golovkin’s less than impressive performance in his last fight against Ryota Murata in April.
“I think he got hit a lot because Murata doesn’t hit so hard. That’s why, ‘It’s okay, it’s fine.’ That’s what I think.
“Since 2018, before my fight with Golovkin, I stopped running because of my knees. For this camp, I started running again three times a week. So, I feel better. I don’t run in that fight with Golovkin too. Remember, I had surgery in April before the fight.
“It’s [168] always been good for me. I don’t know how he’ll [Golovkin] manage it. When I went from 154 to 160, I fought the best in the world at that time, which was him. So I didn’t have any problems to do it,” said Canelo.
“Golovkin won’t have too many problems changing weight in this case,” said Eddy Reynoso.
“Power can make a difference in feeling punches, but it’s not about eating more to go up in weight. That’s not what you do. You manage it in that way,” said Canelo.
“Of course, it’s more motivation. You’ve seen that in my training as well,” said Canelo when asked if his loss to Dmitry Bivol has motivated him.
“The rivalry I have with Golovkin goes back years. You have to see on Saturday before you know whether anything happens in the future. We’ll see,” said Canelo about whether there will be a fourth fight with Golovkin.
