Alvarez and Golovkin after the sound of the 12th and final round of their highly-anticipated contest.
Personal or not, Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin meet for the third time
A fight that should have already happened will happen on September 17 in Sin City. Check out the best bookmakers for betting on boxing!
Feelings are raw, at least according to one of the participants.
“Yeah, it’s personal for me,” said Canelo Alvarez in an article posted on www.essentiallysports.com. “And this is the way I am. I’m not pretending to be the other person.”
The other person, one Gennadiy Golovkin, finds such talk confusing.
“If it’s so personal for him, my question is, why was he putting off the (third fight) for so long?” said Golovkin.
Round one to Golovkin.
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They first met in 2017 in Las Vegas. The bout was intense, competitive, and close.
Alvarez started fast. Golovkin, the aggressor the entire evening, looked nervous and tentative in the early going. He didn’t find himself until near the end of the third round. Alvarez worked the body, while Golovkin stuck out his jab.
Golovkin was in full stalk mode in the middle rounds. He landed a big right in round six but ate a counter hook. He popped Alvarez with jabs and hooks. Golovkin appeared to be in control until Alvarez dug deep and found his second wind. This was gutsy. He rattled Golovkin with a solid right hook in round 10. Alvarez connected with a sweet lead right to the head and left hook to the gut in round 11. Golovkin stopped him in his tracks with his own hook.
Alvarez tagged Golovkin with a sharp uppercut in round 12. He scored with a combination. Golovkin fired back, landing several shots.
Many ringside writers had Golovkin winning the fight. Judging from home, I also gave the edge to Golovkin. Judge Don Trella scored the fight 114-114, and Dave Moretti had it 115-113 for Golovkin. The 118-110 score by Adailade Byrd was a flat-out joke.
A second fight had to happen. It almost didn’t when Canelo tested positive for Clenbuterol. But he was only suspended for six months – so – the rematch went down one year later.
Golovkin didn’t like it. He let Canelo know in a way that still rankles the Mexican star.
“Come on, I told you, it’s not meat,” Golovkin said in 2018. “Canelo’s team are using these drugs and everybody’s trying to pretend it’s not happening.
“This guy, he knows. This is not his first day in boxing,” added Golovkin.
Said Alvarez last week. “He said I was dishonest, that I was a farce, that I was a cheater.”
The sequel was 12 rounds of intense and unrelenting war. Canelo seemed to have the edge through nine rounds, but this time it was Golovkin, loaded with pride and desire, who came on strong in the later rounds. His rally had the crowd on their feet until the final bell rang.
Canelo was judged the winner by a split decision. The debate raged on who won for days, but nobody debated the inner fortitude that each fighter brought to the ring.
The sequel to the sequel does have a familiar feel to it. The month is the same – like the previous two. T-Mobile Arena is again the venue.
But there are differences.
Canelo Alvarez is coming off a loss. The second of his career. Canelo says the fight was close. No. Dmitry Bivol beat him convincingly.
Gennadiy Golovkin stopped Ryota Murata in his last fight, but it wasn’t a walk in the park.
Golovkin is 4o. Close to 400 fights in the amateur and professional ranks.
Is he a shadow of what he once was?
Perhaps a relic.
Canelo is 32. His prime is now. Maybe his negative words are a way to motivate himself.
Golovkin will be motivated as well.
We shall see on September 17.
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