Sanchez: Gennady will punish Canelo like he did Stevens

Boxingnews24.com

By Sean Jones: Saul Canelo Alvarez is going to get treated by Gennady Golovkin in the same way that Curtis Stevens was five years ago when he fights him this Saturday, says trainer Abel Sanchez. Stevens trash talked Golovkin and he paid a heavy price in getting a slow beat down by him until being stopped in the 8th round.

Golovkin was upset with Stevens and he took his anger out on him inside the ring in slowly battering him. Now it’s Canelo Alvarez’s turn. Golovkin is angry at Canelo for him testing positive twice for clenbuterol, talking loads of trash, failing to release the May 5th date until the last minute. Golovkin still fought on the May 5th date, but he had to settle for fighting Vanes Martiroysan in a low level fight.

“We had a fight against a young man named Curtis Stevens. Curtis Stevens’ people started posting stuff on the internet of cemetery plots and it upset Gennady very much and he punished Curtis,” Sanchez said to Fighthub. ”He wanted Curtis to know that you can’t do that. I see that in this particular fight that you can’t do that. I see that in this particular fight, I think he’s very upset at what led up to this point. Why is there this animosity? Why, because of the positive tests. The things that he’s said and done and I’m talking about Canelo; the fact that he delayed releasing that date so that we could fight on May 5th. All those thing are gnawing at Gennady. That’s going to cause him to treat him like he treated Stevens,” Sanchez said.

Canelo is going to have to bring his A-game and then some on Saturday if he wants to beat Golovkin. That mean he needs to improve his stamina by leaps and bounds from what we saw in his previous fight with GGG. That version of Canelo will be easy work for Golovkin this time, because he now knows how to beat the Mexican fighter.

“Canelo feels challenged. He feels Canelo is the biggest challenge for him right now,” GGG’s promoter Tom Loeffler said to Fighthub. “If he’s successful, there’s other challenges in the middleweight division. You’ve got [Ryota] Murata. He’s doing fantastic ratings over there in Japan. Billy Joe Saunders is still out there and a middleweight champion. There are so many other great fights out there. After Canelo, we’ll see what if Gennady feels challenged. Physically, he’s 36, but the way he takes care of himself [he can keep fighting],” Loeffler said.

There are good fights for Golovkin if he gets by Canelo in the rematch. WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders is an option, as is WBA ‘regular’ belt holder Ryota Murata. The U.S hardcore boxing fans don’t care much about either of those fights. They want to see Golovkin fight interim WBC middleweight champion Jermall Charlo, Jermell Charlo, Jarrett Hurd, Demetrius Andrade, Daniel Jacobs and Sergiy Derevyanchenko. Saunders and Murata aren’t fighters that the hardcore boxing fans are demanding.

“We’re preparing for one guy,” Sanchez said about GGG. “We’re going to do to try and beat him, and if we can’t beat him, then we can’t beat him. I’m not going to adapt to him and be less than 100 percent.”

The one thing that GGG can’t do again is to try and box Canelo like he did last time he fought him, because he was clearly adapting his game to his and it didn’t work effectively. It looked like it worked in some respects, as GGG appeared to do enough to win the fight, but not in the eyes of the Nevada judges that worked the fight. Golovkin will need to do a lot more in the rematch if he wants to win a decision. This is still Canelo’s turf in Las Vegas, and he’s still the more popular fighter in the Golden Boy Promotions card. Golovkin cannot make the same mistake in boxing Canelo and thinking that he can win a decision. Golovkin must fight his own fight by going after Canelo to try and knock him out.

Golovkin and Canelo both have been tested frequently by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association during their preparation for their fight on Saturday. GGG has had 12 urine and 6 blood tests, according to Dan Rafael. It’s unknown the number of tests that Canelo has had, as they haven’t been announced. As long as both fighters test negative, it should be fine.