Golovkin too physical for Canelo says Abel Sanchez

Boxingnews24.com

By Jeff Aranow: Gennady “GGG” Golovkin’s size, toughness, power and physicality will prove to be too much for challenger Saul “Canelo” Alvarez towards the end of their fight when he meets the middleweight champion on September 16, according to trainer Abel Sanchez. Sanchez sees GGG wearing Canelo down with his physical style and getting him out of there.

Sanchez thinks Canelo lacks the overall size and physical tools to match up with GGG in their fight on HBO PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Sanchez says Golovkin will be the one that dictates how the fight will play out, not Canelo. He thinks it would be a mistake for Canelo’s team to assume that Golovkin will be fighting him like he did his last opponent Danny Jacobs on March 18 this year.

Sanchez says Jacobs does things a lot better than Canelo. Sanchez doesn’t elaborate what Jacobs does that’s better than Canelo, but he’s likely talking about the mobility, size and punching power. The 6’0”Jacobs is a much bigger, stronger and rangier fighter than the 5’8” Canelo. Jacobs is more of a super middleweight, whereas Canelo is junior middleweight moving up to 160 in search of bigger fights.

“I think Gennady’s mental toughness and physicality will be too much for Canelo at the end, towards the end of the fight,” said Sanchez to secondsout.com. ”Canelo is an exceptional fighter, but there has to be an intangible and I think that’s what it is. They both have great hand speed. They both are big punchers. Canelo is a little shorter, but the intangible will be that Golovkin is more physical,” said Sanchez.

Canelo, 27, tries to use his speed and counter punching to box his opponents much of the time. He’s not looking to knock guys out in every round like Golovkin. That’s the big difference between the two fighters. Golovkin is more of a brute, thanks to his incredible punching power and his mindset. He’s not afraid to put it on the line to go for a knockout.

Canelo can’t do that, because he doesn’t have the size, power or the stamina to throw enough punches to get knockouts. Canelo has to put a lot of punches together for him to get knockouts. He’s not single shot guy like Golovkin, Jacobs, Jermall Charlo or David Lemieux. Canelo needs to beat down his opponents over a prolonged period of time to get a knockout.

You won’t see Canelo throwing 80 to 100 punches per round to try and go all out to get a knockout. He’s not capable of doing that without risking emptying his tank. Golovkin has the power to score knockouts without having to throw a lot of shots. That’s a big difference between him and Canelo. Golovkin can throw as little as 30 punches in a round and get a knockout. Canelo has to throw many more than that unless he’s in with a guy with a fragile chin like Amir Khan, James Kirkland and Liam Smith.

“I think Canelo is going to fight Golovkin differently than he fought anyone else,” said Sanchez. “Golovkin is going to fight Canelo differently than he fought [Danny] Jacobs. All we can do is be the best that we can be, and make the adjustments as the fight goes on, because if we base our game plan on the fight that Canelo fought Chavez Jr., that’s crazy. Chavez Jr. is a different fighter than Golovkin. If Canelo’s people base their game plan on how we fought Jacobs, it’s foolish because Jacobs is a much different fighter than Canelo, and Jacobs does lot better things than Canelo. So it’s impossible to look at tape and say that’s how he’s going to fight, because Golovkin will dictate in how Canelo fights,” said Sanchez.

Canelo and his team are probably counting on Golovkin fighting him like he did against Danny Jacobs, as that would turn the fight into a boxing match. That favors Canelo in a big way due to his hand speed advantage, counter punching ability and the crowd being on his side. If the fight goes 12 rounds, Canelo likely will win no matter how good Golovkin looks. The crowd will likely be cheering Canelo more than Golovkin, given that the fight is taking place in Las Vegas.

Golovkin is popular in the New York area. Triple G only recently branched out to the West Coast in his fights against Dominic Wade and Willie Monroe Jr., but he’s not had enough fights in that part of the country to build a large fan base like he has in the New York area. Canelo will have the fans on his side, and the judges will likely give rounds to Canelo if they’re remotely close.

Golovkin likely has to get a knockout for him to make sure he gets his hand raised at the end. It would be a blunder on the 35-year-old Golovkin’s part to take the risk of using the same game plan for Canelo that he recently utilized for the Jacobs fight. Golovkin used his jab much of the time to win a close 12 round unanimous decision victory over Jacobs in their fight on HBO PPV on March 18. Had that been Canelo in place of Jacobs, it’s easy to speculate that the outcome would have gone against Golovkin. That’s why he can’t use that game plan again.

It’s the wrong style for Golovkin to use if he wants to get a victory over Canelo. Golovkin has to put an exclamation point on his match against Alvarez to make sure the judges don’t take the victory away from him. The best way for Golovkin to do that is to knock Canelo out. Golovkin can probably win a decision, but he might need to knock Canelo down 3 to 4 times in the fight for that to happen. It has to be a judge-proof performance by Golovkin.

“I think in his heart, he’d like to have that forth belt, but [Billy Joe] Saunders has to cooperate,” said Sanchez. “Saunders, every chance he gets, he talks and talks and talks but never really backs it up. Now he’s having to fight Willie Monroe. Hopefully, he gets by Willie. Monroe is a very good fighter. He just seems to talk, but then doesn’t come through with the agreements to make the fight. If we don’t fight him, that’s OK. I think beating Canelo twice will be better than waiting around for Billy Joe Saunders to make up his mind,”said Sanchez.

Golovkin is much better off fighting Canelo two to three times than going after the WBO middleweight title held by Saunders. Golovkin already has 3 of the 4 world titles in his possession at middleweight. Winning one more title won’t do much to validate Golovkin in the eyes of the boxing public.

Golovkin is better off using his time fighting Canelo, Charlo, Jacobs and going after some of the bigger names at super middleweight. If Golovkin decides to move up in weight at the end of the year, then he needs to focus on facing the best talent. If Golovkin gets stuck going after titles rather than fighting the most popular guys, he’ll short change himself. The boxing fans want to see Golovkin face popular guys instead of collecting meaningless titles.