In a pleasant surprise on a bad night for boxing on HBO PPV, the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs)fight was announced last Saturday night following Canelo’s one-sided 12 round unanimous decision victory over weigh drained Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (5-3-1, 32 KOs) at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Golovkin, 5’10 ½”, stepped inside the ring moments after the lopsided scores were given by the judges for the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight.
Golovkin towered over the 5’9″ Canelo (39-1-1, 34 KOs) in standing across from him. The Kazakhstan fighter looked bigger, stronger than Canelo. They looked like two fighters from different weight classes, and that’s not good news for Canelo, because he didn’t get adequate preparation for the GGG fight like he thought he would against Chavez Jr. Chavez Jr. was so bad that he made Canelo’s last two opponents Liam Smith and Amir Khan look good in comparison. Chavez Jr. was a step down for Canelo’s last 2 fights. That’s unfortunate because needed a strong tune-up to get him ready for what he’s doing to be facing when he gets inside the ring with GGG. He didn’t get that with Chavez Jr.
Golovkin, 35, only had to wait 2 years to finally get the fight against Chavez Jr. It’s good that he got the fight finally, but it took forever. I don’t think Golden Boy did that just to let the fight marinate like some people think. I believe they wanted to age Golovkin more so the fight would be more slanted in Canelo’s favor. It’s good that the fight is happening this year rather than it taking place in 2018 like a lot of people thought. It would have upset a lot of boxing fans if Golden Boy pulled the rug out from underneath the Canelo-Golovkin fight by saying that it can’t happen this year.
“GGG, you are next my friend,” said Canelo to Golovkin after tight. ”The fight is done. I’ve never feared anyone, since I was 16 fighting as a professional. When I was born, fear was gone. I never got my share of fear. I’m very happy, and the rivalry is going to show my skills even more. I’ve had difficult fights, and that will no doubt be a tough fight. But, I always say, Canelo Alvarez is the best because I fight the best.”
Canelo needs to be serious. He’s not been fighting the best. I don’t know how he could say that after beating Chavez Jr. last night. Chavez Jr. was the worst of the worst. He’s clearly not the best. The way he looked last night, drained, weak and slow, Chavez Jr. would have been beaten every super middleweight in the division. You can add every middleweight contender as well. Chavez Jr. looked like had lost too much weight in a hurry.
Being on a 1000 calorie per day diet will do that to you. You can see the muscle loss in Chavez Jr’s body. His muscles had atrophied from dieting and too much aerobic exercise. It looks like Chavez Jr. went overboard in running in the hills of Mexico during training camp.
“I feel very excited, right now is a different story,” said Golovkin. ”In September, it will be a different style—a big drama show. I’m ready. Tonight, first congrats to Canelo and his team. Right now, I think everyone is excited for September. Canelo looked very good tonight, and 100 percent he is the biggest challenge of my career. Good luck to Canelo in September.”
It’s going to be a different story for Canelo when he gets Golovkin inside the ring in September. This won’t be a walking punching bag like the one Canelo fought last night. Golovkin is going to be looking to take Canelo’s head off with every punch he throws. I think this is going to be hard on Canelo to try and win, because he doesn’t have the size, and as we found out tonight, he also doesn’t have true middleweight power, and he also doesn’t have the size of some of the bigger middleweights. I don’t know how Canelo is going to be able to succeed in the 160lb division unless he Golovkin, Jermall Charlo and Daniel Jacobs move up to 168 in the near future.
Canelo is going to need to find more punching power, because he’s not going to be able to hurt Golovkin with the way that he was punching last night against Chavez Jr. Canelo didn’t show the huge power that will needed to keep Golovkin off of him, though he did connect with a couple of big power shots in the fight. But he’ll need to do better than that against Golovkin because he’s going to be getting hit very hard all night long. I don’t think Golovkin is going to try and box Canelo like he did in his fight against Daniel Jacobs last March.
I believe Golovkin is going to be looking to knockout on Canelo, because this fight will have a great deal of attention focused on it by the boxing world. Golovkin is going to want to impress the boxing fans because of all the fans purchasing it on HBO PPV.
Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions said that he’s been contacted by people representing Wembley’s Stadium in London, England about them potentially wanting to put the Canelo-Golovkin fight on in their 90,000 seat stadium. I don’t know if De La Hoya would be willing to take the fight outside of the U.S, because Canelo has a lot of fans in the States that wouldn’t be able to see the fight. If the fight is staged in the U.S, they would need to put it in a stadium if they want to take advantage of all the boxing fans willing to purchase tickets.
Wembley’s Stadium has got to be very tempting though. I’m not sure if enough British boxing fans would be willing to buy tickets in high enough numbers to sell out the stadium like they did with the recent Anthony Joshua vs. Wladimir Klitschko fight. Neither Canelo nor Golovkin are from the UK, so it would be a real ask to have the fight staged over there in a stadium.
It’s good that Golovkin finally has the Canelo fight that he’s been waiting for. Golovkin wants to prove that he’s best in the middleweight division, and he never got Miguel Cotto to fight him. For a while there, it looked as if Canelo was going to keep ducking the GGG fight in order to avoid taking a risk with his career.
It’s good that Canelo is finally ready to take the fight. It’s the best for Canelo, because if he ever wants to become a crossover star in the U.S. like De La Hoya was during his career, then it’s going to require that he take important fights against the likes of Golovkin and Daniel Jacobs. To be the best, you’ve got to be willing to fight the best. Canelo can show the boxing fans that he’s willing to face the most talented fighter in the 160lb division today in Golovkin.
Even if Canelo loses the fight, he’ll likely improve like he did after his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013. Canelo fixed the holes in his game from that defeat. If he were to fight Mayweather right now, I think he would beat him, because he’s studied that fight many times and he knows what he did wrong. If Canelo can improve from fighting Golovkin, he’ll definitely rule the division after he retires from boxing.