Gennady “GGG” Golovkin is not sweating it about the huge amount of muscle weight his opponent Saul “Canelo” Alvarez has packed on for their fight in a little over 2 weeks on September 16 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) says all fighters have punching power, and they all have a strategy for their fights.
Golovkin is ready for what Canelo will bring on September 16 in their fight on HBO pay-per-view. Golovkin is viewed by boxing fans as having the superior power of the two. Canelo is known for having good speed, boxing ability, and power when fighting 147 and 154 lb. fighters. Canelo haven’t proven that he can knockout middleweights, because he hasn’t been fighting any.
A great deal of attention has been put on the weight that Canelo has packed on for the GGG fight. Canelo didn’t lose the weight that he added to his frame from his last fight against super middleweight Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in their 164.5 lb. catch-weight fight. Indeed, Canelo has put on even more weight than he had for that match. Whether this is a smart move by Canelo or a mistake will be determined when he starts trading shots with Triple on September 16th.
“It’s a big drama show and true boxing fight,” said Golovkin about the Canelo fight. “Everyone has power. Everyone has style, and everybody has strategy. We’ll see on September 16th.”
Judging by his last fight against Chavez Jr. last May, Canelo’s power does not seem to have gotten better than it was. We’ll have to see if the added muscle weight that Canelo has packed on will improve his power. It doesn’t look like it has though. In watching Canelo hit the heavy bag in training, he doesn’t seem more powerful at all. He looks slower and less agile.
Some fighters get more power on their punches when they add weight, but a lot of them don’t unfortunately. Canelo seems to be in the latter category. He’s not throwing with more power. He’s bigger, slower and possibly less capable of fighting hard for a long period of time without needing rest breaks. In looking at Canelo work out with his trainer Eddy Reynoso, it’s interesting to see how he need s to step back and rest after he throws punches for 10 to 15 seconds.
Canelo backs off and it’s like a tune-out for him. Unlike Golovkin, Canelo doesn’t keep throwing shots and working. He rests. That might be one of the reasons why Canelo’s stamina has never built up enough to where he can fight hard for a full 3 minute round. He takes too many breaks. I’m not sure if that would change for Canelo if he switched out his trainer for someone that forced him to stop taking his frequent rest breaks.
Canelo will likely stick with Reynoso for the remainder of his career. However, if Canelo wears down and gets beaten by Golovkin, he might need to think about getting at least another trainer that can give pointers. Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy Promotions might need to give some helpful career advice to their top money fighter if he gets tired and stopped by Golovkin on September 16.
One thing that seems disturbing about the Canelo-Golovkin promotion is how Canelo is the A-side in the promotion and Golovkin the clear B-side. Things are upside down in the promotion. Golovkin is the unbeaten fighter with more knockouts, and he’s the IBF, IBO, WBA, WBC middleweight champion.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Golovkin when asked what his thoughts are at him being the B-side of the promotion with Canelo. “I respect boxing. I want to win. 100 percent,” said Golovkin when asked if he wants a knockout win over Canelo.
It does seem odd that Canelo has his name in front of Golovkin’s in the promotion, as if he’s the champion and GGG is the challenger. Golovkin will come out first when the 2 fighters enter the ring on September 16. The attention is put on Canelo as the lead fighter, when in reality he’s the challenger in this fight. It seems upside down. If this was the NFL and we had a 16-0 team facing a team with a 12-3-1 record, the focus would be on the 16-0 team rather than the 12-3-1 team. Canelo has a loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. and 2 controversial wins over Erislandy Lara an Austin Trout.
For all intents and purposes, you can argue that Canelo’s record should be 47-3-1, not 49-1. It’s interesting though how Canelo is the A-side and Golovkin relegated to the B-side of the heap, as if he’s in the challenger role. It’s kind of sad, really. It just shows you how much boxing needs to change. It’s still too much like professional wrestling with fighters getting more attention based on their fan base rather than what than accomplishment.
Golovkin should be the A-side for this fight, but obviously if he and his promoter Tom Loeffler had insisted that his name come first on the promotion, and him enter the ring second, he probably wouldn’t have gotten the fight. Canelo is getting the bigger purse split of the 2 despite him being the challenger with no belts. Would Golovkin have gotten the fight with Canelo if he insisted on a 50-50 purse split? I think that’s a big no. Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler would have likely been laughed out of the negotiation room if he’d asked for a 50-50 deal with Canelo. It would have been a nonstarter. Even if Golovkin beat Canelo, I still don’t see him getting a 50-50 deal in a rematch. If Golovkin insists on parity in the purse split for the fight, he likely won’t get the fight. This is boxing. In the NFL and NBA, things would be much different when it comes to sharing of the revenue. Boxing needs to change to make it a fairer sport in my opinion.
“I started training for the fight 2 and half months ago,” said Canelo in talking about how long he’s been training for the Triple G fight. I know what I have to do. I know what’s in front of me, and that’s what I’m prepared for. ”It doesn’t worry me at all, what he does or what he doesn’t do” Canelo said in response to him being worried about Golovkin’s preparation for the fight.”What worries me is what I do and what I don’t do.”
Canelo’s answer seems to be a little snippy. He needs to be concerned about what Golovkin is doing in the fight. If he’s not, then he’s going to get his head taken off. Golovkin has made it clear that he plans on knocking Canelo out “100 percent.” Golovkin wants the adoration that will come from him knocking Canelo out, and he knows that his best chance of winning is to make sure the judges are just ringside spectators with nothing to do on September 16. Golovkin wants to take no chances that he’ll be robbed in this fight. That’s why Golovkin plans on knocking Canelo out, and becoming the next big thing in boxing. But if Canelo is going to foolishly say he’s not worried about what Golovkin does inside the ring in this fight, then that tells you how lost he is.
Canelo is kind of spoiled. He’s had so many easy marks put in the ring with him in the last 6 years of his career. The match-making has been far too soft. When you get a fighter that has been matched as softly as Canelo has, they get cocky and start making similar comments Canelo in saying, “It doesn’t worry me at all, what he does or what he doesn’t do.” To me, that sounds like a cocky fighter used to having his own way in his fights. Would Canelo still be talking like that if he had fought his last 4 fights against these guys:
– Gennady Golovkin
– Danny Jacobs
– Sergiy Derevyanchenko
– Jermall Charlo
I think there would be a good chance that Canelo would lose all 4 of those fights. When asked questions by the boxing media, I think he would sound a lot more humble than he’s sounding right now. Those guys are the equivalent of the murderer’s row of the 160 lb. division. I like Caneo’s boxing skills, but he’s still pretty much a short, blown up junior middleweight.
These are Canelo’s opponents in the last 6 years:
– Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.
– Liam Smith
– Amir Khan
– James Kirkland
– Erislandy Lara – *(Controversial win for Canelo)
– Alfredo Angulo
– Floyd Mayweather Jr.
– Austin Trout – *(Controversial win for Canelo)
– Josesito Lopez
– Shane Mosley
– Kermit Cintron
– Alfonso Gomez
– Ryan Rhodes
– Matthew Hatton
Canelo has been busy fighting welterweights and junior middleweights during his career. He beat Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. at super middleweight and Miguel Cotto at middleweight, but those 2 guys are not 160-pound fighters. Cotto is a little 154 lb. guy that won the WBC middleweight title by taking advantage of Sergio Martinez being old at 40 and slowed by a chronic knee problem. Canelo hasn’t ever faced a quality middleweight before, so it’s impossible to know how he’ll react when he gets inside the ring with GGG. What we do know is Canelo has a reputation as a bully in the minds of some boxing fans.
Canelo has been matched against a lot of older welterweights past their prime, and some badly flawed junior middleweights. Golden Boy has kept Canelo well protected until now. If things fall apart for Canelo against Golovkin, you have to worry how his promoter Oscar De La Hoya will take the news. After all, Canelo is the only money fighter for De La Hoya’s Golden Boy stable. He might need to take Canelo’s career in reverse and continue with matching him against older junior middleweights and 147 lb. fighters. I’d hate to see that happen. It would be like De La Hoya admitting that Canelo doesn’t have the talent to be a major player at 160.
“I feel great at this age,” said Golovkin. “Seriously, I don’t know, just my training every day, I’m just the same. Just my sparring is the same, like my speed, my power, I don’t lose. I feel like ten years ago,” said Golovkin. ”Like right now, I’m 35, but I feel like 25. Maybe inside, maybe right now I’m younger than Canelo. I feel like 25.”
The 35-year-old Golovkin is almost 10 years older than the 27-year-old Canelo. That says a lot that Golovkin feels like he’s a younger fighter than Canelo physically. We all know that in life, people age differently. Some people age more rapidly than others. As such, it’s quite possible that Golovkin is physically the younger fighter than Canelo despite being 8-years older than him. But, 35 is not old in boxing. It’s old for some fighters, especially the ones that get by with their hand speed more than their power. We all saw how quickly Roy Jones Jr. went downhill once he started losing his blazing hand speed.
Fighters with huge punching power tend to be able to compete at a high level for a long time. Former heavyweight world champion George Foreman is a good example of that. In his 20s, he was a knockout artist that obliterated most of the guys he fought. After retiring and staying out of boxing for a decade, Foreman came back in his 40s, and he was still able to do well thanks to his huge punching power. If Foreman was a speed guy, his career probably would have been over when he got older.
Golovkin is the same way. It doesn’t matter that he’s 35. His power is still just as good as it was in his 20s, and that’s going to be a real problem for Canelo, has been dining on less than the best at 147 and 154.
We really don’t know how good Canelo is because Golden Boy has kept him protected from the quality guys for the most part. Yeah, Canelo fought Floyd Mayweather Jr. and lost to him, but then Golden Boy has moved away from fighting the good fighters ever since. I think Lara is a good fighter, but that’s the only guy that Canelo has fought that was still in his prime and a threat to beating him since the Mayweather fight. Miguel Cotto was not the same guy he’d been earlier in his career when he fought Canelo in 2015.