Sanchez: Golovkin will wear Canelo down

By Dan Ambrose: On September 16, Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) will NOT be using the safety first blueprint that Floyd Mayweather Jr. used exclusively in beating Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision 4 years ago in 2013, according to GGG’s trainer Abel Sanchez. He says he doesn’t want Golovkin to fight Canelo in the same way that Mayweather did because it would make the fight boring to watch for the many boxing fans that will be purchasing the fight on HBO PPV.

Yes, the safety first style that Mayweather used would be very effective against the 26-year-old Canelo, as he doesn’t do well at all against fighters that use their reach to jab him from the distance.

“Mayweather is more of a safety first fighter and I think that’s what made it a lackluster fight, even though he was dominant,” said Sanchez to skysports.com. “The fans are looking for entertainment and entertainment from two guys who come forward has to be the kind of fight that people enjoy.”

Mayweather was already a HUGE crossover PPV star when he fought redheaded Mexican star Canelo. Mayweather had a big enough fan base that he could afford to make it boring for the boxing fans and STILL remain a popular fighter. Golovkin can’t do that. It would be an insane move on Triple G’s part for him to fight in a dull manner like Mayweather.

It would bad news for GGG’s career for him to use the Mayweather blueprint to jab Canelo from afar. The thing with Mayweather is he ALWAYS fought with the safety first style of fighting. Mayweather was always a pot shot fighter during his career, even when he was at super featherweight. At the lower weights, Mayweather’s speed enabled him to get a lot of knockouts with his pot shots. But once Mayweather moved up to welterweight, he couldn’t knockout anybody, and he would win using his jabs and single shot right hands.

Mayweather used a lot of holding. We see Mayweather’s style of fighting with the way that light heavyweight champion Andre “SOG” Ward fights today with him jabbing, throwing single pot shots, and immediately holding his opponents. It works for Ward, but it’s boring for some boxing fans to watch because it’s not thrilling to watch if you’re the type of fans that prefers to see action.

Sanchez thinks it would be a bad idea for the hard hitting Golovkin to fight like Mayweather, as he doesn’t want to put the fans asleep with that type of approach to the fight. Golovkin wants to become a huge star in boxing, and above all, he wants to entertain the fans.

Mayweather got away with just jabbing Canelo in beating him by a wide 12 round points decision. The fans didn’t tear into Mayweather perhaps because he was the smaller and weaker guy going up against a big puncher that was coming to take his head off. However, the fans were furious when Mayweather used the same safety first approach to his “fight of the Century” against Manny Pacquiao two years later in 2015.

Rather than mix it up and make it a thrilling contest, Mayweather stayed on the outside and jabbed Pacquiao. Mayweather won the fight, but he made a lot of fans angry in the process. Golovkin is bigger and more powerful than Canelo. If GGG uses the same approach that Mayweather did against Canelo, it would make him look funny, almost cowardly. That would work against Golovkin getting out of the fight with his popularity intact.

“I see Golovkin winning going away, but if Golovkin is able to tag him in the second part of the fight – he may stop him late,” said Sanchez. “Again, like with Kell [Brook], Golovkin just being the heavier puncher and the more physical guy. Canelo will wear down, but it’s going to be a very entertaining fight.”

Sanchez is a smart trainer. He’s got to know that it doesn’t work for Golovkin to just stand on the outside and jab his opponents. It doesn’t work because the judges frequently don’t give much weight to a fighter that just jabs and shows off ring mastery. Judges tend to be more influenced by a fighter that lands the harder and cleaner shots, even if all they do is land 3 or 4 good shots during an entire round.

Golovkin could land 50 jabs to the head of Canelo, and still lose the round against the popular Mexican fighter. Why? The judges are more interested in seeing big punches than judge jabs. Look at Canelo’s fight with Erislandy Lara in 2014. Lara used the Mayweather blueprint and just stayed on the outside and jabbed. Canelo rarely landed anything at all in the entire fight, and yet he was still given a 12 round split decision win.

The judges gave Canelo the win because they felt he landed the cleaner shots. Some boxing would say the judges only gave the fight to Canelo because he was the more popular fighter and he brings in more fans than Lara. Canelo landed only 31 head shots during the entire 12 round fight. He certainly deserved to lose the fight. What we learned from that fight is it’s not easy to beat Canelo by a decision unless you’re name is Mayweather. You’ve got to beat Canelo the old fashioned way by matching him punch for punch if you want to beat him by a decision

To sum it all up, here are the reasons why Golovkin MUST slug with Canelo rather than use the Mayweather blueprint to beat him:

– The judges might be more influenced by 3 hard shots from Canelo than a high number power jabs thrown from Golovkin during each round.

– Golovkin will make it boring for the boxing fans if he runs, holds and jabs the way that Mayweather did when he fought Canelo. It’s too easy to fight like Mayweather and stink up the joint with a boring safety first style of fighting. It takes real guts to take risks against someone like Canelo. As we saw in Canelo’s last fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on May 6, some fighters aren’t willing to take the risks against Canelo to make it exciting for the boxing fans. Some fighters will play it safe and end up as a punching bag.

– Golovkin just found out the hard way in his last fight against Danny Jacobs that it doesn’t pay off to stand on the outside and jay away for 12 rounds. By just jabbing it made fight closer than it probably would have been had Golovkin just gone after Jacobs from the get go and tried to take his head off with every punch the way that Dmitry Pirog had done in 2010. If Golovkin had fought Jacobs the way that Pirog did, he would have made the fight a much more one-sided one IF it had gone to a decision. But by just jabbing, Golovkin enabled Jacobs to complain afterwards that he should have won the fight. Jacobs is still complaining to this day that he won, and the fight has been over with for almost 3 months. Golovkin cannot afford to put himself in the same position against a popular fighter like Canelo, because not only will he look bad in the eyes of the boxing world, but he’ll probably lose the fight. Like I said, Canelo is a popular guy that means a lot to the sport. It’s not easy to beat a fighter that brings in the kind of money that Canelo does when it comes to beating him by a decision.

– Golovkin’s defense isn’t good enough for him to get away with just jabbing to win a fight. Golovkin was still getting hit by Jacobs despite him playing it safe on the outside. That fight showed that Golovkin doesn’t do well when he only jabs, because he still gets hit cleanly every once in a while. The judges ended up giving rounds to Jacobs in which he landed just a few shots despite Golovkin hitting him constantly with his head-snapping jabs. Why did the judges ignore Golovkin’s jabs in favor of a small number of Jacobs’ power shots that landed? You tell me. I think it’s obvious that judges favor power shots over jabs.