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By: Sean Crose
They last met four long years ago. Canelo Alvarez won that night, besting the feared Gennady Golovkin by virtue of a controversial judge’s decision. The fighters’ careers have gone in wildly different directions since that time. Canelo has, for the most part, remained the biggest name in boxing. Golovkin, on the other hand became nearly semi retired. Most would argue that their impending third battle, set to go down Saturday night at the T-Mobile arena in Las Vegas, would be a foregone conclusion….or, that is, they would have if Canelo hadn’t lost his last fight, an unsuccessful attempt to wrest the WBA light heavyweight title from the waist of Dmitry Bivol.
Now people aren’t so sure…or at least they’re not as sure as they were. Aside from his two previous battles with Canelo, the fighter known as GGG hasn’t taken a whole lot of wear and tear in the ring. Again, the man’s only had four fights since the second Canelo match (the first battle between the two went down in 2017 and ended in a controversial draw. Most felt GGG should have won). Still, the Kazakh warrior is no kid at the age of 40. Plus, he hasn’t always looked his best over the past 4 years.
Just ask Sergey Derevyenchenko, who some felt did enough to beat GGG when he lost to the popular fighter back in 2019. There’s no doubt, however, that Canelo is coming off a tough loss. Before meeting Bivol the guy hadn’t lost since facing the great Floyd Mayweather all the way back in 2013. Such things can impact the psyche. Yet even more telling might be the fact that GGG truly seems to have the ability to get inside Canelo’s head. There is genuine dislike between these two, and Canelo needs to be cool as ice come Saturday.
Of course there’s talk that Canelo-GGG 3 is past it’s sell by date. Perhaps it’s past its premium date but there’s no doubt this is exceedingly interesting bout to see. Does GGG have it in him to pull off a win of this magnitude at the age of 49…and a super middleweight, no less? Will Canelo be able to return to prime form, the kind of prime form that had made him look nearly invincible for the past several years before losing to Bivol? These are questions worth discovering the answer to.
