And now the end is near
By James Blears
Four years since their second epic encounter, on September 17th during the Mexican Independence annual celebrations, located at the T Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Canelo and Triple G, will wage the final warring decider, in their last encounter, which is certain to be the most dramatic showdown of the trilogy.
Mexican superstar Canelo has all the belts at super middle and Kazakh KO King Golovkin in a last hurrah, is moving up a division after his biggest rival and after them.
Best to be up front and start with the daunting stat. Gennady is 40 years old, and Canelo is eight years younger at 32. That's so much to give away age wise, but magnified, multiplied and mummified in terms of the boxing ring. Eight years is a gulf and to bridge it would take an historic achievement, demanding super-human brilliant sheen at super-middleweight, to turn back the hands of time. We will soon see if it's a bridge too far, or an arch of triumph.
Their two first fights were so very, very close. Irrespective of the official draw and the win for Canelo, I felt that Golovkin won the first and Canelo won the second. So here we are… and here we go!
Even though Canelo is the younger, he has fought more often. His record stands at 57-2-2, 39 K0s, accomplished over 448 rounds. He started at the tender age of 15, so he's been fighting professionally for s17 long years. His debut was way back in 2005. Gennady's record is 42-1-1, 37 KOs. His pro debut was in 2006, aged 23, after close to 400 amateur bouts. He's fought 228 rounds.
No one can defeat Father Time and Mother Nature. Gennady is showing unmistakable signs of ageing. In 2019 he had to dig so deep to defeat Sergiy Derevyanchenko, albeit by UD. A six punch combination concluded by a cracking right, briefly put Sergiy down in the first and a left hook sliced his right eye open in the second. But dipping into the shallower yet more effervescent fountain of youth, he fought back with tenacity. Body punches hurt Gennady and he was backed up time and again.
Gennady is a front footed fighter. He doesn't look good or move well, being forced back. Unlike in his earlier career he had to weather a cascade of punches in order to land his own, which were heavier, but there was a price to pay inflicting them. His own face became swollen with crimson crab apple cheeks.
GGG has always had an iron chin, but never before was it tested so much and the constant body punches severely left their mark. He was suffering and that sort of tirade trade-off, has its inevitable consequences.
The signs of deterioration were even more evident in his most recent fight in Japan against WBA middleweight champion Ryota Murata in April of this year. The first five rounds were verging on a nightmare for IBF champion Gennady. His accurate left jabs were countered by a searing and visibly hurtful body attack from Ryota, who was also landing hard rights to the head. Gennady was wincing and drawing breath!
Nowadays Gennady is slower, although still heavy handed and pinpoint accurate and he can't maintain his hitherto blitz like attack. Between flurries, he takes a breather and he's much easier to hit. The zap remains, but zip isn't there in the legs, as it once was.
A massive right by Gennady in the sixth, changed the course of the fight and Ryota's ability to take it to him diminished. Another even bigger right, at the start of the ninth signaled the beginning of the end. Gennady unleashed, Ryota went down, got up and GGG launched an unanswered onslaught, until the towel came flying in. But… the wear and tear he'd sustained to bring down the victory curtain was significantly fraying.
Against Canelo, one division up from his natural weight, Gennady won't have the luxury of being able to weather a firestorm and then pour it on with the extinguishers. Canelo hits considerably harder than either Derevyanchenko or Murata, and he knows Gennady considerably better. They've already fought 24 rounds.
Although Gennady stands five feet ten and a half inches tall and his reach spans 70 inches, Canelo, who's a more compact five feet eight inches tall, has a reach of 70 1/2 inches!
At this stage of his career, Canelo is a natural super-middleweight, but Gennady is not. On a recent visit to Mexico, Golden Boy Matchmaker Roberto Diaz suggested that at his age, Gennady might benefit from the extra eight pounds. But if this had been fought at middleweight, Canelo would have been the one to work much harder and more stringently to make the weight. Canelo's frame is more square and solid, while even approaching middle age, Gennady is more slender and willowy.
Canelo doesn't look good in and isn't big enough for the light-heavyweight category. Sure, he KO'd Sergey Kovalev in spectacular fashion in the 11th. But Kovalev was coming off a veritable war against Anthony Yarde less than three months earlier.
Undefeated WBA champion Dmitry Bivol was altogether a different test. Taller, more mobile and with so much quicker hand speed, he dominated Canelo with the left jab and pinpoint combinations. Canelo was ponderous and slow, carrying the extra weight and he plodded at a pedestrian pace. As early as the fifth round, he appeared to be tiring and although he got his second wind later on, he wasn't able to maintain a sustained attack.
Bivol, who avoided and evaded being trapped on the ropes, didn`t stand and trade. Instead, he fired in quick-silver combos and was versatile as opposed to Canelo's dour predictability. Saul was constantly trying to catch-up, and he didn`t.
Following his defeat aged 23 against Floyd Mayweather, Canelo went back to school and significantly improved. Now at 32, I expect him to do the same. He has to work on his speed, stamina and punch variation plus output, especially to the body, where Gennady is increasingly vulnerable.
No boxer is at their best at forty years old. Yet Gennady might still have one final supreme fight within him. To achieve it, he will have had to put himself through a Spartan training routine which is more prolonged, more graduated, tempered and measured than ever before. It takes longer when you`re older. You know what to do, but it takes your brain longer to coax your body to obey its impulse commands.
Many years ago I asked Emanuel Steward, how he'd train four times heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield to become champ for a fifth time. Pausing for thought, Manny replied that he'd push an ageing body to defy its encroaching limits, just one more time. He`d put Evander in with younger sparring partners and make him work diligently plus often. Evander himself said that in that part of his career he preferred to run alone, rather than with the nimble young bloods. Everything would take considerably more time and require an even more meticulous build up. Sadly they never teamed up to try this formula, but the strategy is open to Jonathan Banks.
The longer the fight goes on and the more heavy punishment inflicted by Canelo upon Gennady, the more likely that even his legendary iron chin and steely resistance will bend, buckle and break. I feel that Gennady, who's normally a slow starter, will have to uncharacteristically launch an early onslaught from the opening bell and go for broke in the first half of the fight. If not, then the greater chance that Canelo, will catch up with him and throw landing bombs, as he tires and visibly ages, round by round.
The results in both of their first two fights haven`t shied away from controversy, but what happens in this one, will put those others into the shade.
