Golovkin vs Canelo III: The Fight Site Roundtable
Photo by Dustin Satloff/Getty Images
This Saturday, Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez will step into the ring for a third time to settle on scores. Of course, on Canelo’s side the score is mostly one of public image - he’s peeved that most people think he got lucky in both fights. Golovkin, of course, feels robbed, wants to get back that loss and prove once and for all he’s the better boxer. The problem might be that… well, he’s 40, he’s clearly not who he was anymore. Will jumping up a weight ease off cutting issues and help him out? Will Canelo’s shock loss to Bivol throw him off or bring him back stronger than ever? The Fight Site team is here with our thoughts.
Iggy: Sigh. Of course this fight was bound to happen. I’m not very happy about this booking. The least charitable interpretation of it that springs to my mind is that Canelo’s team may be looking for a rebound after Bivol was able to box him up, causing some truly idiotic opinion pieces to be released.
Golovkin’s career to me is one of missed potential. Not wasted — missed, which is an important distinction. The fact that a fighter so talented, so athletically gifted, and so skillful, has wasted a ton of his time fighting outside of the casual audience’s eye, under a coach now known for mostly cruising on the talent of his fighters (see also: Murat Gassiev) — well, it all just chafes with me.
And now it almost comes across as he’s being used as an aging name to maintain another fighter’s prominence. I dunno, maybe I’m reading way too much into this.
Regardless, let’s look at what let GGG find moments of success against Canelo previously: ringcraft, use of the jab, competence on the outside and at mid-range. Canelo was able to smack GGG with some hellacious counters up close, whereas GGG’s control of distance and footwork let him continuously pepper Canelo with nice, sharp 1-2s and 1-1-2s. For all the talk of GGG being a plodder, a fighter with no nuance — primarily because of the stigma many casuals seem to have for pressure fighting in boxing — his actual boxing skill was allowed to shine in his fights with Canelo, albeit a tad too late in his career. Basically the bits that let Bivol outfox Canelo, GGG could display too, but: he’s not as fleet-footed, way smaller, and his corner kept pushing him to “fight, goddammit” to boot, despite Golovkin finding a lot of success with that approach.
What’s even more discouraging, is that by now Golovkin is a bit of a plodder. In the sense that his speed has been steadily declining for a while now, and in his outing against Murata quite frankly it took him too damn long to get the (admittedly very game) younger fighter outta there. His punches looked as mechanically-sound as always, but the speed and the snap weren’t there. The pace and the tempo seemed to be getting a bit hard for Golovkin to keep up, and that to me doesn’t say good things about GGG’s chances against Canelo this time around.
Lukasz: I don’t particularly want to defend Canelo but I should point out that this fight was agreed and announced before he fought Bivol back in May. That doesn’t necessarily make the thought process much better - he’s essentially hoping to beat up an old man because the public don’t think he beat him fair and square the first two times - but he didn’t decide on it after the loss.
In some ways that makes him look even worse, mind - looking past your next opponent is never a good idea and there’s a reason that even in other cases where this has obviously been happening (like Estrada’s recently announced trilogy fight with Roman Gonzalez, clearly already arranged before the Argi Cortez fight) they don’t announce them until afterwards.
Anyway, some may be tempted to suggest that the loss to Bivol offers Golovkin some hope, and some pathways to a win - but I just don’t see it. As you say, Golovkin’s become a bit slow now - not stampy necessarily - but lacking both snap and the flow he used to have in his movements. A lot of Bivol’s win was based on pushing and tricking Canelo out of his usually-flawless footwork with small movements and adjustments with the feet, getting his opponent to bite and then pausing or sliding back out of range. This not only led Alvarez to lose his form trying to deal with it, but caused him to get hesitant about opening up himself for fear of getting countered. Thing is, Golovkin never had that kind of bounce in his step on his best day, and he certainly doesn’t now.
Are there other routes there? Well, in theory, but aside from a knockout - something he clearly can’t just plan for - all of them depend on controlling the tempo throughout, a nearly impossible thing to do against Canelo at the best of times and rather unlikely for someone who took time to get up to speed against Murata.
Iggy: Oh, my bad. Honestly if it’s coming off as if I’m hating on Canelo, I’m really not. Dude’s a P4P monster and I’ve always enjoyed him as a fighter, but you gotta admit that some of the behind-the-scenes stuff that causes people to talk about his career management and some of the notorious scorecard scandals can’t be ignored. Granted, I’m basically covering my ass for jumping to conclusions based on those factors, so eh.
Regardless, the bottom line is that this booking comes across as kind of depressing. For all the talk of “never count a fighter like GGG out” and all that other stuff, it just seems like a foregone conclusion from where I’m sitting.
Basically, GGG’s best chance at this point is either make the fight insanely boring, which he very likely won’t, or slug it out in the centre, which he could, but it could also lead to him getting career-ending damage, basically ending up being a valiant losing effort. Which, depending on the state of his finances outside the ring, might actually be something he should be inclined to do, as crazy as it sounds — get in that last great fight and bail. GGG is not “washed” in the sense that “oh my god, he’s Tony Ferguson getting guillotined by Nate Diaz” (Jesus Christ), but he is declined. Sticking to the outside and trying to jab-hook Canelo and clinching with him when things get hairy can let him find some opportunities to score a few points here and there, but could also get him walked down and decked round by round. Could he find success throwing down centre-ring? I guess, but it also opens him up to a whole bunch of hard counters. Either way, unless GGG manages to pull a miracle out of his ass, it’s a straightforward Canelo UD, but I hope Golovkin at the very least goes down swinging.
Taylor: I’m going to jump in here and offer my two cents. First of all, I can’t see Golovkin winning this fight. The trick to beating Canelo is to push him back and force a pace that he’s not comfortable with, which is exactly what GGG did in the first fight. We saw this recently against Bivol as well, with the Russian taking advantage of Canelo loading up on punches by using his footwork to retake the centre of the ring, seizing the initiative and backing Álvarez up. The thing is, at this point in his career GGG doesn’t have the engine to do that. Golovkin struggled with the sustained body attack of Murata - an opponent who would’ve been tailor-made for him in his prime - last time out, and was forced to clinch at various points. Faced with one of the sport’s premium body-punchers in Álvarez, it’s difficult to see Golovkin being able to push the pace for 12 rounds. I reckon he gets broken down and stopped on Saturday night by a version of Canelo who will be looking to make a statement following his loss to Bivol. It’s no fairytale ending for GGG fans this time, as Álvarez closes the trilogy with a body-shot stoppage in the 10th round. I expect Golovkin to retire afterwards, and I absolutely think that’s the right decision. The Kazakh’s résumé may not come close to matching his talent, but for those who know boxing he’ll go down as one of the best pressure fighters of his generation.
Mateusz: This does seem like a very cynical booking from Canelo, regardless of when it was booked, and I share the worries for Golovkin’s prospects too. There is an air of desperation to his taking this booking; Although contemporary fight fans know the series should at the least stand at 1-1, GGG himself likely feels that the statistical record doesn’t reflect that, history will forget the context and his legacy may be tarnished.
Unfortunately, it leads him to this: it might not be a ceremonial fight arranged by Canelo’s team to redress a loss, but it feels like one.
I agree with Lukasz; Golovkin has never had the fleet-footedness that the much larger Bivol showed so successfully in discouraging Canelo’s pressure. But the GGG-Canelo II fight especially allowed Golovkin to showcase a wonderful blend of subtly shifting guard, head movement and a delightful degree of work off the backfoot which allowed him to accommodate and diffuse Canelo’s pressure for large stretches in the fight. He had a flow to his work which actually wasn’t always present in opponents that didn’t drag it out of him, when he was able to be much more of a bludgeoner, or executioner.
Unfortunately, in his fights since this has diminished. I first became worried for his prospects in a rematch in his fight against Derevyanchenko, when he just seemed so unaware of whatever body attacks Derevyanchenko would throw, to the point they were visibly affecting him in later rounds.
Against Canelo, not good.
And against Murata, his legs looked rather stiff and his upper body movement just a bit laboured and disjointed. I wouldn’t say he was getting hit much more than usual in the early rounds, but he was getting caught just a bit more cleanly than when in his prime.
Luckily for GGG, Murata is not the most heavy-handed or relentless puncher he has ever faced, and he survived easily enough, until he finally managed to get going later in the rounds.
But the worry is, GGG has never been known to be a particularly slow starter; this warm-up procedure is a new and concerning wrinkle. The finishing stretch looked a lot better from Golovkin, but frankly, it was not much consolation considering how long it took him to get to setting that familiar tempo and pressure.
Canelo is also not the quickest starter, and neither does he have the greatest gastank himself, but he did managed to last the pace against GGG in his prime in their second fight, albeit with a newly adopted front-foot pressure game which helped him ameliorate a lot of his issues with tempo and timing that caused some of his stamina issues previously.
GGG’s main hope is that a lot of those old familiar issues with Canelo’s gameplan made a big appearance in the Bivol fight, but I also don’t have much confidence he can enforce the pressure points which caused them to appear. Maybe Canelo’s confidence is dented after such a chastening boxing lesson? I doubt it, mind, Canelo doesn’t strike me as an insecure fighter; he has a long history of learning lessons and enacting them.
And GGG has neither the length nor the speed of hand or foot that gave Canelo such an issue. And while he may be extremely well conditioned, at this point he’s extremely well conditioned for a 40 year old man and fairly obviously cannot keep up the pace he used to so comfortably.
I also expect him to fade late, and get crushed to the body, unfortunately. I don’t think it’ll happen too soon, GGG is still stupidly tough and has never been troubled by a blow to the head, but by round 8 or 9 I think he’ll start slowing considerably, allowing a TKO 9 for Canelo, and I hope the peevish bastard is happy with himself.
Lukasz: Yeah, I’ve got to agree with the general trend here. Age comes for us all, ultimately, and Golovkin’s been showing worrying signs. I would say that I don’t necessarily see Canelo actively pushing for the KO even if Golovkin fades, I think Golovkin will be more likely to turn to a point-fight than go toe-to-toe as he tires, and although it’s a risk of age we’ve seen no sign yet that the Kazakh is vulnerable to one-hit quitters, so I’ll go for Canelo by depressing decision.