Five years after their first meeting and four since their second, generational talents Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin lock horns for the final time this weekend in the familiar halls of T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The PPV main card also features wunderkind Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez defending his Super Flyweight title vresus Israel Gonzalez, double-tough veteran Gabriel Rosado taking on the dangerous Ali Akhmedov, and blue chip prospect Austin “Ammo” Williams squaring off with British standout Kieron Conway.
On Sept. 16, 2017, Golovkin defeated Canelo, regardless of how the ringside judges scored the fight. Indeed, outside of Alvarez’s friends and family, the only people who disagreed were judge Don Trella — who indefensibly saw it as a draw — and Adalaide Byrd, who somehow topped her 30-27 scorecard for Leonard Garcia vs. Nam Phan by giving Alvarez 10 of the 12 rounds.
On Sept. 15, 2018, Golovkin arguably defeated Canelo again. Rather than a draw, he walked away with a majority decision defeat, the first (and thus far only) loss of his professional career.
Alvarez is unquestionably stronger now than in their prior meetings.
Bigger, more powerful, more seasoned, a genuine Super Middleweight who thrashed virtually every threat the division had to offer. Though Golovkin remains a unified Middleweight champion and is coming off a stoppage victory over former Olympic gold medalist Ryota Murata, he’s just not the era-defining monster he was in the mid-2010’s.
From struggling with and arguably losing to Sergiy Derevyanchenko to his abominably slow start versus Murata, he looks, well, like a 40-year-old who’s spent his career welcoming blunt-force trauma with open arms.
Expect this to be another close fight that will require Canelo to pick up the activity and hope that he can keep GGG from outworking him. If he’s unable to hurt Golovkin or make him respect his power, the upset will be in play. The betting line is too good to not take GGG to pull off the upset against his rival.
