Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin will be, for people who like to bet on boxing – that is, on real boxing – like a mouthful of Listerine following the circus that Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor was. Both fights, though, to be honest, have a few things in common. It will be, for example, the second time, in less than a month, that a ginger will fight, as a sports betting underdog, an older opponent. As in common in boxing, moreover, there is, allegedly, much shadiness and underhandedness going on around this fight.
It's #CaneloGGG FIGHT WEEK! 😱🔥
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Sept 16.
Middleweight Supremacy on the line! pic.twitter.com/6xLDO7Qyvu
— Golden Boy (@GoldenBoyBoxing) September 11, 2017
- Date: September 16, 2017
- Venue: T-Mobile Arena
- Title(s) on the line: WBA (Super), WBC, IBO, IBF, The Ring and vacant lineal middleweight titles.
Canelo Alvarez – 9½ (-230) +140
Gennady Golovkin – 9½ (+190) -160
Some say that Canelo, or rather his promoter, Oscar De La Hoya – aka Golden Boy – bided his time until Golovkin showed signs, such as breaking his knockout streak, of being past his prime, to allow the fight to happen. Others say that Triple G purposefully sacrificed his 23-fight KO streak in order to convince De La Hoya that the time was ripe to prey on the 35-year-old Kazakhstani boxer. Not that, had they come up with such a scheme, would Golovkin and coach Abel Sanchez fess up to it, but as far as Batman gambits go, if indeed it were one, it was brilliant. Both GGG and Sanchez would go, though, and have, as a matter of fact, gone as far as claiming that, if Triple G had knocked previous opponent Daniel Jacobs, people who bet on boxing would not be talking, at this juncture in time, about Álvarez vs Golovkin.
“Boxing is a business,” Golovkin said via ESPN. “If I look great against Jacobs – if I knocked him out – I would not be getting this fight with Canelo now.” while GGG has been boxing the likes of Jacobs, who, according to Sanchez, is “the second-best middleweight in boxing,” Canelo has been fighting a string of ham-and-eggers, last and definitely least of whom has been Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. “Chavez hasn’t fought under 167 pounds in five years,” Sanchez said. “He was drained [to get to the contract limit of 164.5 pounds] and barely threw a punch. If that same Chavez fights Gennady, there is no question Gennady knocks him out. Chavez was a sitting duck.” It was, in other words, as farcical as this little number:
Was De La Hoya waiting for Golovkin’s chin – widely considered to be one of the best in modern boxing – to grow soft? “De La Hoya clearly chose to allow Golovkin-Alvarez to marinate. If they’d fought in 2016, they might be on the verge of a mega-millions rematch by now, but that’s not the road De La Hoya chose,” Yahoo Sports fight writer Kevin Iole wrote. “If it’s a great fight, all will be forgiven. But if Golovkin’s performance in his last fight against Daniel Jacobs is the beginning of some sort of decline at age 35, then the boxing world will forever rue what might have been.” Fans who bet on boxing will have to wait, though the end of the wait is nigh, as only time will tell whether this fight, three years in the making, arrives three years too late.