Saturday night the boxing world will once again turn its attention to the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas as Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0-0, 33 KOs) defends his unified middleweight titles against the former lineal middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs). It’s the fight we’ve been waiting to see for two years, as Alvarez and his camp strung along negotiations until Canelo’s star reached its peak — and Golovkin aged a bit.
Now, the two middleweight stars will finally meet in what is the antithesis of last month’s Mayweather-McGregor bout. Where Floyd and Conor spent months talking and antagonizing and doing press tours, Golovkin and Alvarez have been far quieter, choosing to let their resumes as two of the most skilled and powerful boxers in the pound-for-pound rankings speak for themselves. While the buildup has been far less interesting than its megafight predecessor, once in the ring the Canelo-GGG bout figures to bring a level of excitement and competitiveness Mayweather-McGregor (despite its surprisingly decent action) never could.
The fighters, at this point, are known commodities.
Canelo, the Mexican star, who has lightening quick hands and tremendous power in his right fist. Alvarez has been in the ring with a who’s who of super welterweight and middleweight stars, from Mayweather (his lone loss in a majority decision) to Shane Mosley to Miguel Cotto to Amir Khan, and performed admirably if not impressively against all of them. The one-time 15-year-old prodigy is now a 12-year veteran of professional boxing and as he enters his prime years he figures to take the throne as boxing’s biggest draw.
Then there’s Golovkin, the Kazakh star that came to the United States to fight for the first time in 2012 and in the five years since his arrival has skyrocketed to superstardom in the boxing world behind a legendary knockout streak (that ended with his most recent fight) and his jolly demeanor once fights end. Where Alvarez is Mexico’s favorite son, Golovkin has chosen a “Mexican Style” as he loves to say and in turn has been adopted by the ravenous Mexican fight fans in Southern California and beyond.
GGG possesses knockout power in both hands and as his career has progressed and his competition has improved, he’s shown a growth in his skills as a boxer beyond being just a puncher.
Saturday night’s matchup will come down to a few keys, but the biggest one in my mind is which fighter can do the best work to the body. Golovkin’s latest fight against Daniel Jacobs showed that the knockout king of the middleweight division can be slowed down by good, consistent body work. The danger, of course, in attacking GGG’s body is that you bring yourself into range for him to land a power punch. Golovkin has lethal power with both hands, as we’ve seen him knock opponents out in a variety of ways, from left hooks to the body, looping overhand lefts, and, his most dangerous weapon, the right hook.
On the opposite side, Canelo isn’t as aggressive as Golovkin against top level fighters until he finds his advantage or a weakness he can exploit. Against Cotto and Khan, Alvarez was smart with his movement early in both fights so as to find his range and understand when and where he could walk in and look to score big shots. Against Khan, it was waiting out the tremendous hand speed of Khan by chipping away at his stamina with thunderous body shots and crisp combinations getting in and out of the pocket, before he found his opening to step in and drop him in the sixth.
With Cotto, it was finding out whether he could be truly hurt by the champion, and, again working the body to slow him down and, once he knew Cotto’s power wasn’t going to bother him, he walked him down and began tossing significant combinations. For Golovkin, the best way to ensure Alvarez never gets comfortable enough to walk him down and exploit any weaknesses is to attack the body early and often and try to do to Canelo what he often does to his opponents in wearing him down physically and looking for the big shot later in the bout.
Body shots aren’t the ones that often make the highlight reel, but good, consistent body work is the best way to sap an opponent’s power, and in a fight where a knockout is expected and both fighters have world class punching power, it’s going to be a necessity. While Golovkin has proven to have tremendous power to the body and uses that weapon effectively, I feel like Alvarez will be more committed to it in this fight and will find more success punching to the body and going through the Golovkin jab to get there.
When Alvarez has struggled in his career, it’s been against fighters with great movement skills — namely, Mayweather. For all his great offensive technique and improved footwork and defense, Golovkin doesn’t have lots of head movement and has a tendency to stay in the pocket. No fighter has ever been able to take full advantage of that because it requires you to stand in the pocket with him and risk one of those massive power shots coming your way, but I think Alvarez’s craftiness in popping in and out of the hitting zone and delivering those blows with accuracy before his opponent can counter will be enough to keep him upright in this fight and avoid the fate 33 of Golovkin’s 37 opponents have had in ending the match on the canvas.
My final prediction for this fight is Alvarez def. Golovkin by 10th round TKO in a fantastic, close fight that features multiple knockdowns but eventually Canelo’s body work wins the day and wears the champion down.
