Why Gennady Golovkin will beat Canelo Álvarez

  •  Bryan Armen Graham on why Canelo will beat Golovkin
  • This is a fight with no bad guys. You don’t get that often in boxing. Saul “Canelo” Álvarez and Gennady Golovkin are bona fide class acts in the ring and now they are pitted against each other in a fight that maybe should have happened a couple of years ago, but at least it’s on. It will be the fight of the year and, if it’s not, some of the blame will be down to the promoters who milked it, who delayed the action until it was more commercially viable for them and, of course, their clients.
    All that said, this should be a great fight. Usually there is a disparity in skill that determines a favourite. But there is not much of that here. If pushed, I’d say Golovkin has the greater skill set, but not by a lot. He has that ability gifted to only a few of being able to operate calmly under fire. He goes in what the Americans call “the pocket”, much as Roberto Duran used to do. In that scary space, fighters have to be alert to every oncoming danger while still throwing their own punches, and not many can do it. Golovkin is one of those.
    The Kazakh has a rhythm of fighting that almost ignores the activity of his opponent. He rumbles. He comes forward in his own time and space. And then he strikes. He is like a viper. There is no escape.
    It is true that in some of his recent fights he has taken more collateral damage than might seem wise. That might be the result of complacency over a long, unbeaten career. Fighters tend to ignore pain the older they get, and that can be dangerous to their health. But Golovkin at his very best is superb at slipping punches, one of the unsung arts of the sport.
    Sugar Ray Robinson used to say – and no apologies for repeating this – that the single most important component in a boxer’s armoury is to take the opponent’s boxing away from him. To stop him boxing, in effect. He worried fighters out of the fight. They didn’t know what they were even in the ring with him for half the time. Golovkin has that rare talent.
    In Alvarez, however, he has an opponent that only once has been thus troubled: against Floyd Mayweather Jr. That fight exposed the Mexican’s inability to adjust to eccentric and constant movement. Mayweather took away his boxing.
    Golovkin won’t do it in quite the same way. He will impose his physical strength on Alvarez – and this time there will be a lot more coming back. Mayweather did Alvarez a huge favour that night: he heightened his sense of awareness about the other guy. A natural counter puncher, he now judges way better the artillery coming in his direction. But this time it will be fully loaded. I think Golovkin’s artful hurting skills will kick in to Alvarez’s detriment from about the seventh round onwards, and pay a dividend in maybe round 10 or 11, when they both realise time is running out.

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