Sanchez talks Canelo-Golovkin rematch

Boxingnews24.com

By Sean Jones: Trainer Abel Sanchez is counting on Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez being a little more aggressive against Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin in the rematch this year than he was in their first fight last September.

The rematch between IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) and Canelo has yet to be finalized for May 5. Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy president Eric Gomez are giving different stories about the progress of the negotiations. The Canelo-GGG rematch will eventually get made. De La Hoya isn’t going to let Canelo walk away from the big money that he can make in a second fight with Triple G, especially when the alternatives are so bad for the redheaded Mexican star.

Unless Canelo is going to fight the weaker contenders like David Lemieux, he’s going to be expected to fight the dangerous guys like Jermall Charlo, Daniel Jacobs and Sergey Derevyanchenko. There’s no money in those fights for Canelo, and he could lose to all 3 of those guys.

Sanchez says Canelo (49-1-2, 34 KOs) was outright running at times, and that made it nearly impossible for Golovkin to land shots. In commenting on why Golovkin failed to land more body shots, Sanchez says it was difficult to do because Caenlo was on the move and not willing to stand his ground. Canelo didn’t fight the way that he said he would going into the fight. Canelo had talked about how he was going to knockout Golovkin. But instead of trying for a knockout, Canelo fought to survive for 12 rounds by using movement.

“There are a lot of things to try and work on for the next fight,” said Sanchez to Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports News about the Canelo vs. Golovkin rematch. ”I thought he [Golovkin] had some moments that he could have capitalized on and he didn’t. Canelo fought the type of fight for him not to get knocked out. I thought he fought a great fight for the style he fought. It wasn’t the fight the people expected. He talked a lot about knocking Gennady out before the fight, and Oscar [De La Hoya] did too and Bernard [Hopkins]. Hopefully the next fight they’ll know each other better, and they’ll go at each other a little bit harder, and the fans will be treated to not only a good fight but a better fight than the last one,” said Sanchez.

Canelo, 27, might be more motivated to slug with Golovkin after having some moments of success against him last September. Canelo landed occasional punches in that fight when he wasn’t running and eating GGG’s power jabs. Canelo would land single shots, and then run from Golovkin to keep from getting hit back. The running looked bad, but the judges were so impressed that they were giving Canelo a lot of rounds nonetheless.

I don’t think Canelo is going to be able to change his fighting style in a significant way in the rematch. To make a major change to his game for fight No.2 against GGG, Canelo would need to have the conditioning to fight a hard 3 minutes. I don’t think Canelo can do that. Canelo couldn’t do it earlier in his career when he was in his early 20s, and he definitely can do that now with him bulked up in the 170s or 180s fighting at middleweight. Canelo is too big and he doesn’t have the cardio to put out enough effort to fight more than 1 minute of each round. Canelo’s terrible stamina problems are going to hurt him in the rematch with Golovkin, as well as in the remainder of his career when he’s matched against the top guys like Jermall Charlo, Daniel Jacobs and Sergey Derevyanchenko. If Golden Boy decides to have Canelo avoid those fighters for the remainder of his career, then they’re going to marginalize him and make him look like a protected fighter, which you can argue is what he was when he was at 154. Canelo never fought the Charlos or Demetrius Andrade when he was fighting at junior middleweight. His win over Erislandy Lara was a controversial 12 round split decision in 2014.

Golovkin looked like he was trying to make sure he didn’t get hit by Canelo, and that prevented him from going after him the way he needed to for him to score a knockout. For Golovkin, he looks like he’s trying too hard to box and not get hit after dealing with a lot of negative fallout from his 5th round knockout win over welterweight Kell Brook in September 2016. Brook landed some shots against Golovkin in that fight. Golovkin took the punches well and wore Brook down until the referee stopped the fight in the 5th round. But afterwards, boxing fans seemed to filter out the results of the fight and put more emphasis on the handful of punches that Brook landed. Since that fight, Golovkin has put more effort into defensive side of his game in his matches against Daniel Jacobs and Canelo Alvarez. That might be the reason why Golovkin failed to get knockouts in both of those fights. He was trying hard to show the boxing fans that he could beat someone without getting hit as much. The problem with that style of fighting is it means that Golovkin is now being forced to go the full 12 round distance with his opponents. When you do that, it gives your opponent the chance to claim that they won, which is what we heard from Jacobs after his loss to Triple G. Jacobs told the boxing world that he deserved the win over Golovkin, and he continues to say that. Additionally, Golovkin letting his fights go to the scorecards lets the judges put their own stamp on the fight. They can score it how they see it, even if their warped perception is completely different from how the average fan sees the fights. Golovkin would be better off going back to his old style of slugging if he wants to avoid future robberies from occurring.

“I thought we won 8 to 4,” Sanchez said in talking about the Canelo-Golovkin fight. “I understand the controversy. Adelaide Byrd was way out of line, but I think the one that hurt us the most was Don Trella, who gave Canelo the 7th round, which was Golovkin’s best round of the fight. That made it a draw. If Trella gave him the round, then Gennady won the fight, which I feel he won anyway,” said Sanchez.

The judge Trella’s decision to give round 7 to Canelo is really the story of the fight. That was Golovkin’s best round of the fight. Golovkin was pounding Canelo at will in the 7th in response to him putting him in a headlock in round 6 and hitting him while he was helpless. It was a showboating move by Canelo in which he reached behind his back at hit Golovkin in the face while he had him in a headlock. You can argue that the referee should have taken a point for that cheap shot because it was a foul on Canelo’s part. If Golovkin had done the same thing, you’d expect him to be penalized as well. Golovkin looked angry when he came out for the 7th, and he then proceeded to punish Canelo for the entire round. It’s unclear what Trella saw in the 7th that made him score it for Canelo. By giving the round to Canelo, Trella cost Golovkin the fight. If the round had been given to Golovkin, as it arguably should have been, he would have won the fight. You can understand why Sanchez feels that Trella’s decision to give the 7th round to Canelo as being the thing that hurt Golovkin the most. The other 2 judges gave the 7th round to Golovkin. But for some reason, Trella saw something during that one-sided round that made him think Canelo deserved to win it.

With the attention on the oddball judges scores from 2 of the judges in the first Canelo-GGG fight, it’s more likely that there will be far better scoring by the judges for the second fight. That’s one positive to look forward to. The odds are probably low that the second Canelo vs. Golovkin fight will have similar controversial scoring by the judges.