Month: September 2018

Now former unified middleweight champion Gennady Gennadyavich Golovkin (38-1-1, 34 KO) and new champ Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (50-1-2, 34 KO) both emptied their tanks and showed terrific chins on Saturday night in Vegas.  But once again, what’s right was sacrificed for what’s lucrative.

I give credit to Canelo for fighting valiantly.  He brought the pressure this time landing plenty of hard shots.  Most rounds were close and admittedly some were hard to score.

But each time Canelo came forward he was met with continuous accurate thudding jabs, often followed by GGG’s own power shots.  Golovkin landed 32 more total punches and threw 257 more.

The Kazakh was bloodied but never hurt.  The red haired Mexican was also bloodied and buzzed twice in the 10th.

In Canelo’s compubox favor were power punches.  He threw 34 more and landed 27 more.  But compubox stats can be slightly misleading in certain situations, this being one of them.

Anything other than a jab is considered a power punch.  A flailing, off-balance right hand with nothing on it is a power punch.  A check hook that barely grazes the forehead is a power punch.

This is not to say Alvarez didn’t land true power punches.  He absolutely did.  But there’s another side to it.

Golovkin’s jab is not a range finder or a pecking Paulie Malignaggi (no disrespect meant to him) type jab.  It’s heavy and sometimes snaps your head back.  It’s essentially a power punch in it’s own right.

Admittedly, I am a GGG fan but I try to be as objective as possible while scoring.

Though I varied slightly on how I got there, my score was identical to HBO unofficial scorer Harold Lederman’s 116-112 (8 rounds to 4) for the former champ.  Harold is the only one on HBO who left his Mexican flag pompoms at home.

Viewers were forced to hear from Max Kellerman (Where have you gone Larry Merchant?) that Canelo was winning the “story of the fight.”  Is that code for the fight is close enough for our 28 year old golden goose to be given a decision.

Roy Jones commented that Golovkin can’t be given a decision when he challenged Alvarez to come forward which he did, but did not punish Canelo to the body and completely dominate him.  So does that mean that the thudding jabs, rights and left hooks Canelo walked into don’t matter?

There was nobody in my living room who did not feel GGG was the clear winner.  Other writers and boxing media I respect:  Teddy Atlas, Stephen A. Smith and Al Bernstein all had it for Golovkin.

Doug Fischer, Jerry Izenberg and Dan Rafael saw a draw.  I found nobody I regularly read or listen to who scored an Alvarez victory.

But a Canelo win means better business for Las Vegas and HBO.  That’s why the telecast is so partisan.  Alvarez is 28 and has the bigger name.  He can sell big events for at least five more years if he keeps winning, deserved or not.

Golovkin is 36 and any objective observer can see that he’s now running on fumes.  Even if he got his deserved victories in these two fights he may very well lose to his next opponent.  That’s not nearly as profitable.

GGG bares some responsibility here too.  Again he abandoned what was once a fierce body attack.  Had he put some of that “water in the basement” he may have been able to take more rounds, dominate the fight and be given a razor thin decision.

But what’s done is done so let’s look at where these two combatants go from here.

Canelo:

There are plenty of challenges out there for the new middleweight king.  Unifications with Billy Joe Saunders (WBO strap holder) and the winner of the IBF title bout between Sergiy Derevyenchenko and Demetrius Andrade are viable.

Daniel Jacobs is big and dangerous but the fight is easy to make for HBO.  Jermall Charlo is in my opinion the most talented fighter in the division right now.  But don’t look for HBO and Showtime to get together to make that fight anytime soon.

Jaime Munguia is an up and coming Mexican badass who holds a 154 lb. title.  Does Canelo do with Munguia what Floyd Mayweather did with him and offer big money to get the talented but green buck in the ring before he becomes too dangerous?  Mexican vs. Mexican on Cinco de Mayo weekend?

There’s also the possibility of a third Golovkin fight.  I think Canelo would definitely win, this time deservedly.

GGG:

A trip to Canastota, NY for enshrinement into the International Boxing Hall of Fame is certain.  What’s also certain is that the record books will not be as kind to GGG as his dominance was to hardcore fight fans.  Because the middleweight division (Canelo included) spent most of the decade running from Golovkin like he was carrying a butcher knife, he lacks a big signature win.

David Lemieux, Kel Brook, Daniel Jacobs, Martin Murray, Curtis Stevenson, Willie Monroe Jr. and Matthew Macklin are all quality fighters to varying degrees.  None, however are household names.

He needed his hand raised in one of these fights and in my opinion earned it in both.  But to be objective the tread on the tires was looking worn in the first fight.

They looked nearly bald in this fight.  Even though I thought he won, I saw moments where it appeared his mind was telling him to pull the trigger but his body just wouldn’t fully cooperate like it once did.

I think if he continues to fight the steel belts will poke through and cause a blowout.

He sounds like he plans to fight on and who am I to say this warrior shouldn’t make his money.  But if I were Abel Sanchez and those close to him I’d advise him to pull a Marvin Hagler.

Take your millions and tell the power brokers who you feel denied you what you earned to go to hell.

This kind of thing has always gone on in prize fighting.  The fighters (MMA included) on a whole are the most noble of professional athletes.  The powers that control things:  promoters, networks, athletic commissions, sanctioning bodies are the least noble.

But because I love the fighters I won’t walk away.  They spill their blood and sweat and face fears that you can’t quite appreciate from your living room, not just on fight night but also in the gym and in their dark moments alone with their thoughts.  Yes they do this to make a living (and these guys a good one), but also for our entertainment.

That’s what makes the bullsh*t so disturbing.  Yes, both fights between these two were competitive but history has been compromised.  Talk soon.

-Marksman

Those of you who saw the first showdown between unified middleweight champion Gennady Gennadyevich Golovkin (Triple G) (38-0-1, 34 KO) of Kazakhstan and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KO) of Mexico last September saw a good, not great action fight between two TV-friendly fighters.  You also were lied to by corrupt or inept judges who scored a bulls**t draw to Canelo’s benefit.

Most who watched the scrap outside Camp Canelo felt that Golovkin won clearly in a competitive fight.  Alvarez had his moments; enough of them to justify this rematch but it should be 1-0 GGG at this point.

Almost exactly one year to the day on September 15 on HBO Pay-Per-View at 8:00 PM EST the telecast starts and GGG will have the chance to right a wrong while Alvarez will get the opportunity to cement himself as the rightful non-heavyweight star in boxing.

The rematch was of course originally scheduled for this past May but 2 failed PED tests lead to a suspension of the red-haired Mexican, more laborious negotiations and bad blood between the camps.  Hopefully that bad blood will make for the modern day Hagler-Hearns type classic that we were hoping for last time out.

The champ comes in with some subtle advantages.  He possesses the superior jab, punching power, conditioning, recent activity (KO win over Vanes Mitirosyan in May while the challenger has had a one year layoff) and maybe a small edge in physical strength and chin though Alvarez showed last year that he has the whisker’s to withstand the Kazakh’s power.

Canelo’s more pronounced advantages are his speed, defense, versatility (he can pressure and counter while Golovkin MUST come forward), and most of all his age.  At 28 the Mexican warrior is in his athletic prime while Father Time is nipping at the 36 year old GGG’s heels.

Hardcore fans were disgusted with Canelo’s choice to surrender the WBC belt that he won from Miguel Cotto in 2015 rather than immediately face Golovkin’s mandatory challenge.

But like it or not, it turned out to be a smart move as that version of GGG was far too dangerous to Canelo’s health in comparison to the present version of Golovkin which has been world-class, but not the dominant force he was say pre-2017.

The keys to victory for the challenger are:

1-Keep the fight in the center of the ring.  Having your back against the ropes is suicide against a guy like Golovkin who has all-time power and Chavez-like (Senior) determination.

2-Be busier.  The red-haired Mexican made GGG miss big at times but didn’t counter with enough volume.  He also must keep his jab in a good rhythm to disrupt Golovkin’s which is basically a power punch.

3-BETTER CONDITIONING!  This is paramount for Canelo and has always been his Achilles heel.  He has a tendency (maybe from the muscular physique) to gas out.  The above two are contingent on Alvarez’ stamina.

Keys to victory for the champ:

1-Keep that sledge hammer jab pumping all night!  When GGG looked sloppy at times against Kel Brook in September 2016 before stopping the Brit, it was because he was lunging in with rights and left hooks without jabbing his way in.

2-Cut the ring, don’t follow.  Pressure fighters like the Kazakh must cut the ring off and keep Caleno pinned to the ropes.  When pressure fighters get sloppy with their footwork (common with age), they end up chasing the more elusive fighter and walking into hazardous conditions.

3-As Teddy Atlas would say:  “put some water in the basement!”  In the first fight and Golovkin’s close victory over Daniel Jacobs, he all but abandoned what for most of his career has been a punishing body attack.  This will slow Canelo down, wind him faster and create more opportunities upstairs if not end the fight itself.  Granted, going to the body opens you up to punishment but it may be a risk that GGG has to take to get his hand raised as seen last time out.

So who am I picking?  The mental game for both is key here.

Golovkin is as solid mentally as they come, but he is angered by the disrespect shown to his championship reign by the Vegas judges, failed tests and negotiations where he was usually the one making B-side concessions.  He seems to be fighting uncharacteristically angry.  Does that cause him to over-train and leave it all in the gym?

Was Canelo doping in their first bout?  Or were the failed Chlenbuterol tests really the product of tainted Mexican beef which has exonerated other athletes?

Only he knows.  But if he was dirty in the first contest and now under stricter testing (WADA, though nothing is foolproof) there could be some self doubt for the Mexican going in.

Also, will the bad blood lure Alvarez into more of a firefight?  As a GGG fan and just a fight fan in general I sure hope so.

But I am going with the assumption, at least for now that Canelo was clean the first time and clean now.  I will also assume he is smart enough to box and fight in spots like before.

Golovkin is what he is:  a come forward destroyer.  And at 36 he is never getting any better at it; probably only worse.

Since the decision was read I was picking Canelo in my mind for this fight because that is what logic points to at this stage of their careers.  With the age difference and the fact that Canelo is the present AND foreseeable future golden goose for Las Vegas, GGG seems to be up against it.

But sometimes a once great fighter, and GGG was once great even if the general public never knew turns back the clock.  I am reminded of Roberto Duran’s unexpected victory over Iran Barkley in 1989 on a snow covered Atlantic City night at age 37.  Barkley was fresh off a knockout of Tommy Hearns who had nearly decapitated Duran in 1984.

I also think of the countless times we thought Bernard Hopkins was done but proved himself to be a self described “alien” with victories over the likes of Antonio Tarver, Kelly Pavlik and Jean Pascal.  Something in my gut tells me that the champ has something good coming to him.

So I will go against my head and with my gut that GGG breaks Canelo down and wins inside the distance.  Talk soon.

-Marksman

PS:  Boxing is notorious for light undercards in comparison to Ultimate Fighting Championship events.  Not this time.  This card features former pound-for-pound king Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez taking on Moises Fuentes.  In a battle of middleweight contenders, two action fighters square off when David Lemieux (former GGG victim) meets Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan.  And in the semi-final undefeated knockout artist and 154 pound belt holder Jaime Munguia meets Brandon Cook.