Gennady Golovkin: Canelo and his team have lost respect

 by John Dennen

CANELO ALVAREZ is determined to draw a line beneath the two drug test he failed earlier this year. Blaming tainted beef for the traces of clenbuterol found in his system he was only handed a six-month ban and rescheduled his rematch with Gennady Golovkin for September 15.

He was unwilling to dwell on the tests. “The reason for the cancellation, we all talked about that. The main thing is the fight got here, the fight got done. I did it for the fans. This is the fight you wanted to see and come September 15, I can assure you it will be a much better fight than what you would have seen in May,” he said at a press conference.

Golovkin is looking to leave any bitterness behind him, despite his plans being thrown into turmoil. “First of all, I respect the fighters of the level of Canelo, and the fact that they screwed up, it was not my decision to disqualify him, and I think it was a team failure, but it doesn’t matter right now. It doesn’t matter right now. It’s important that we’re going to have a fight,” the Kazakh said.

But he couldn’t deny that Alvarez has lost some respect. “Respect is respect. We have different mentality. We have different understanding of what respect is,” Golovkin said.

“I think Canelo’s team, by doing what they did, and they lost some respect from their fans. But it’s not important. I do have respect to all the fighters, all the athletes, all the champions who fight at this level, and I think at the very end, we will find a way to shake each other’s hand, regardless what the outcome, regardless of what we think before the fight. As two men, we should be able to stand against each other and shake each other’s hand at the end.”

That’s not entirely convincingly. They held an online press conference on Tuesday, in separately rooms, in separately locations. The two fighters won’t see one another face-to-face until fight in Las Vegas in September. The spite between them is real.