Canelo hints he’ll smother Golovkin on the inside

By Dan Ambrose: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs) is hinting that he plans on fighting Gennady “GGG” Golovkin on the inside on September 16 in their long-awaited fight in Las Vegas, Nevada. Canelo says the key to beating Golovkin is to attack him to the body and come up stairs with combinations.

Canelo says he wants to stay close to Golovkin on the inside when throwing his shots. This suggests that Canelo is going to try and smother’s Golovkin’s power by not letting his get enough leverage on his shots to hurt him. It’s not surprising that Canelo is thinking of using this approach, because he’ll be hurt if he fights at medium distance.

Canelo also can’t fight on the outside because his arms are too short to reach Golovkin. It’ll be a one-sided fight if Golovkin keeps Canelo bottled up on the outside, eating jabs all night long. Canelo has to get close to try and smother Golovkin’s power.

Canelo believes that Golovkin has problems fighting on the inside and he struggles against fighters that throw combinations. Golovkin’s last 2 opponents Danny Jacobs and Kell Brook both had their best moments in the fight when they were attacking Golovkin with combinations. Unfortunately, they were also getting clipped while they were throwing those combinations as well. It wasn’t all good for them when they were letting their hands go.

Jacobs was effective at times when he crowded Golovkin in close. Golovkin’s power wasn’t nearly as good when Jacobs was at close range, but then neither was Jacobs’ power that great. If Canelo plans on fighting Golovkin on the inside, it’ll be interesting to see how well he does. Canelo has decent power in close, but he still does his best work at medium range. Canelo isn’t nearly as effect on the inside as Mexican boxing greats like Julio Cesar Chavez and Salvador Sanchez.

“I saw nothing really new of Golovkin,”said Canelo in discussing his last fight against Danny Jacobs. ”He’s pretty much one-dimensional. He’s a fighter that is very aggressive and comes forward. I saw that when you have a fighter that is a little bit intelligent that moves and boxes, he’s going to give Golovkin trouble,” said Canelo.

Golovkin beat Jacobs by a 12 round unanimous decision on March 18. Canelo seems to be idealizing the movement that Jacobs used in the Golovkin fight without realizing that he gave the fight away by moving around the ring rather than fighting Triple G. The movement only kept Jacobs from winning rounds and getting knocked out. Jacobs wasted his time and his opportunity by moving.

Canelo seems to be listening to what some people have been saying about the Golovkin-Jacobs fight rather than thinking for himself. Jacobs gave away the fight by moving instead of fighting. Golovkin was jabbing Jacobs continually to the head when he was moving around the ring. It was stupid for Jacobs to move so much, because he wasn’t able to land anything.

If you win a fight you don’t move around the ring without fighting the way Jacobs was doing. That was a stupid fight plan. Jacobs gave away the first 6 rounds of the fight by moving. Canelo must not have seen the Golovkin vs. Jacobs fight for him to be glorifying Jacobs’ movement. Golovkin was the one getting the better of Jacobs by boxing, not the other way around. Jacobs was giving away crucial rounds in the first half of the fight by moving so much instead of letting his hands go.

”I do think Jacobs gave him too much respect in the first few rounds,” said Canelo in analyzing why Jacobs lost to Golovkin. ”If he’s started a little bit sooner and not respected him as much, he’d have won a clear decision. Even though that happened, I still thought Jacobs won by 1 or 2 points,” said Canelo.

If Jacobs started fighting Golovkin in the early rounds, he would have been knocked out. Jacobs should have tried to throw some punches in the first 6 rounds, but the chances are high that he would have caused Golovkin to stop boxing and go into overdrive to knock him out. We saw what happened to Jacobs when Golovkin briefly attacked him in the 4th round.

Golovkin knocked Jacobs down like he was a human bowling pin. It was so easy looking. Golovkin went after Jacobs for a split second and had him down. After the knockdown, Golovkin backed off and resumed jabbing Jacobs from the outside with head-snapping jabs one after another. Jacobs couldn’t get close enough to land his shots without getting hit with jarring jabs. Canelo seems to have forgotten how much of a weapon Golovkin’s jab was in that fight.

Jacobs was getting hit with it the entire fight. The scoring for the Golovkin vs. Jacobs fight was off to a wide degree. The judges gave Jacobs the 10th and 12th rounds. If you look at the replay of the fight, Jacobs was badly staggered in the 10th. For the judges to give Jacobs the 10th, it doesn’t make sense at all. I think the scoring for the fight was way off to the actual fight that took place. The judges seemed to be seeing a different fight than the one that took place.

In the 12th, Golovkin outworked Jacobs, nailing him with more shots than he was hit with. The punch stats showed that Golovkin landed more shots in the 12th, and yet the judges still gave the round to Jacobs. In looking at the 10th and 12th rounds in slow motion, you see Jacobs’ shots hitting Golovkin on the gloves, and Golovkin’s shots landing cleanly. In fact, if you look at rounds 6-12 in close motion, the rounds that Jacobs was supposedly winning were rounds in which his punches were landing on the gloves of Golovkin.

The scoring for the fight was atrocious. It was way off from the fight that took place. Jacobs deserved to win 2 rounds in the entire fight. If you count only punches landed, Golovkin should have won 10 rounds to 2. If you count blocked punches for winning rounds, then Jacobs lost the fight 8 rounds to 4. In boxing, you’re supposed to focus on clean landing shots, not punches that hit the gloves.

”Combination punching is a key, and is very important in this fight,” said Canelo.”I think you have to go to the body and come upstairs with combinations. Not only that. I think the distance control is going to be very important. If you stand directly in front of him at a certain distance, he’s dangerous. So you have to be either all the way in or all the way outSo that’s something that is going to be very important in the fight,” said Canelo.

By Canelo saying he’s either going to be all the way in or all the way out, he’s revealing that he plans on trying to fight Golovkin on the inside. Canelo doesn’t have the reach to fight Golovkin on the outside. If Canelo tries to fight Golovkin from a distance, he’s going to get his head jabbed off the way he was in his fights against Erislandy Lara and Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Canelo can’t win an outside tactical battle against Triple G. I think Canelo knows that. When he says he’s going to be “all the way in or all the way out,” Canelo means he’s going to be out of range of Golovkin’s punches when he’s on the outside. That’s a fighting style that I’ve never seen Canelo use before. He’s always been the aggressor in his fights. When he was kept on the outside by Lara and Mayweather, he was jabbed and dominated. Lara was arguably robbed, which is unfortunate for him and for the sport. If Canelo decides he’s going to try and smother Golovkin’s power, I don’t see that as a game plan that will work for him to win the fight.