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THERE'S NO POINT TO A CANELO-GGG PART 3

By Paul Magno | December 12, 2018
THERE'S NO POINT TO A CANELO-GGG PART 3

Forget that their first two bouts were close encounters and forget the silly outrage over the two outcomes in those fights (By the way, a draw was a fair decision in the first fight and a Canelo win was a fair decision in the second fight. Deal with it).

Close fights with controversial decisions between two “names?” That just screams rematch, especially when we’re talking about a part 3 where parts 1 and 2 made some serious money. 

But maybe we can forego a part 3 in the case of the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez – Gennady Golovkin rivalry. Actually, pretty please, let’s forego a part 3.

When two fighters are evenly matched, the end result is usually an action-packed battle with entertaining ebbs and flows in momentum. And while Canelo and Triple G are, indeed, evenly matched, they seem more matched to play to each other’s weaknesses than to their strengths. 

Canelo’s natural caution and methodical mindset makes him unlikely to go to war with anyone, under any circumstances. It’s just not his thing to throw caution to the wind in a warrior vs. warrior blood battle. That’s not a value judgment on his mettle as a fighter, it’s just a statement on who he is as a human being. 

We were never going to see him wade into Golovkin in a “do or die” firefight. Alvarez will always box Triple G because, deep down inside and despite attempts at painting himself as a Macho, battle-eager Mexicano, he is a cerebral boxer with an instinct for risk vs. reward assessment. 

Golovkin, meanwhile, may have rightfully earned a reputation as a big puncher and expert finisher, but, like Canelo, he’s not really a battler/warrior, either. The Kazakh KO artist could be described as a bit of a front runner or, perhaps more accurately, as someone whose considerable offensive prowess comes from his physical attributes more so than true in-ring grit. 

Golovkin has never turned the tide of a bout where his opponent was fighting on even terms with him. And on the very rare occasions he was matched against a live body with the ability to actually win, like against Daniel Jacobs and his two bouts with Canelo, he just could not clearly dominate or create any significant separation between him and his opponent. Like a lot of physically gifted fighters who have coasted an entire career on the strength of their gifts, there’s not a well-defined plan B if an opponent can’t be overwhelmed by sheer physicality. 

A lot has been made of Golovkin’s footwork, body work, and jab—but the fact of the matter is that these assets shine the most against opponents who are overmatched and aiming on survival. On the handful of occasions where he couldn’t walk through his opponent and establish dominance before exhibiting these assets, they simply weren’t much of a factor.

So, essentially, in Canelo vs. Golovkin we have a matchup where a careful, cautious boxer with the brains and skill to stay out of harm’s way meets a physically gifted power puncher who has never really shown an ability to get to someone with the skill and ability to nullify his destructive powers. 

In other words, this is a dead-end matchup where neither guy can decisively beat the other. Canelo can keep Golovkin from doing damage, but he doesn’t have the will or physicality to dominate him. Golovkin has the power and the physicality, but not the ability to force Canelo out of his game. These guys could fight a thousand times and we’d probably never see either one truly dominate the other. 

Add all of that to the general negativity and nastiness of the vibe surrounding their bouts (plus the jaded, crazed, conspiracy theory-hungry fandom both sides seem to attract) and we get a rivalry that may be better off laid to rest. 

Let Canelo fight Jacobs and let Golovkin fight Jermall Charlo. Throw Demetrius Andrade and Billy Joe Saunders somewhere in the mix. There are some interesting fights to be made at middleweight right now. Things don’t have to center around a high-profile, but destined-to-disappoint third chapter in the Canelo-Golovkin book.

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