Alvarez v Golovkin II Preview and Predictions
“Canelo Alvarez’s Camp blames suspect meat for positive clenbuterol test.”
As excuses go it’s right up there with the dog eating your homework. Nevertheless the ban is over and the rematch to what many consider the fight of 2017 is on. Now and then things happen in boxing that even the WWE would find ludicrous but the draw in the first match was not one of those. If VAR had been involved I wouldn’t say there was a clear and obvious error, those who rooted for Gennady Golovkin thought he’d won and the same for Canelo Alvarez.
It was a cracking fight, won by Golovkin in my opinion, and I’m hopeful for more of the same this time.
Golovkin v Alvarez Promo
Canelo Alvarez
The Gennady Golovkin rematch will be fight number fifty-two for Canelo Alvarez at the age of 28. Thirty-four knockouts mean that despite that activity he hasn’t necessarily been overworked and he looked in pretty good nick in the media workouts.
The only defeat on his record is the points defeat to Floyd Mayweather, at a lower weight, albeit against Mayweather of course! He’s got youth and speed on his side and he absorbed some savage punches from GGG, punches that have broken other fighter’s bones.
The drug issue obviously casts a shadow on the last fight and results in previous fights to an extent. However, if you do take them at face value his most memorable fights since Mayweather have been against Brits in Amir Khan and Liam Smith.
Canelo demonstrated perfectly his own punching power against both. Khan dropped like a stone with a peach to the chin and Smith was crippled by an almost obscene body shot.
Neither had the slightest hope of beating the count after. Unfortunately for Alvarez, Gennady took all of that and then went back for more.
Golovkin stood up to Canelo’s right hand last time out
Gennady Golovkin
For the man from Kazakhstan this will be his 40th fight, coming at the age of 36 and he’s won them all bar the first with Canelo. Thirty-four of his opponents have not gone the distance and a couple of those that did, fought in eight round bouts early on in his career.
It was only when he fought Daniel Jacobs nearly 10 years later that the judges had to submit their scorecards, then suddenly they had to do it again with Alvarez. For any normal boxer this wouldn’t be worth mentioning but the knockouts did dry up just a little. It might just be possible that age is catching up with him. Maybe.
Vanes Martirosyan, the man who stepped in when Alvarez was unavailable for the rematch would probably beg to differ. His career will likely not be remembered outside his family but he’d never been stopped until GGG chopped him down in the second round in May.
Kell Brook would probably point out the broken eye socket he suffered two years ago too. The thing is most fighters don’t have knockout reels on YouTube that last for nearly 20 minutes. Nor do most known punchers hit their opponents so hard that they’d still be down if you counted to 100.
Alvarez v Golovkin II countdown
Canelo Alvarez v Gennady Golovkin Prediction
It’s a tough one to call but I can’t find enough of a reason to think that Canelo wins this, just as he probably didn’t win last time. His main hope seems to be that in the last year Golovkin has somehow lost something and that his talent, power and reflexes have degraded sufficiently for the Mexican to take him out. Gennady isn’t a Tyson Fury or Ricky Hatton type though who might have gone large in the last 12 months and risked his legacy. I therefore have no choice but to plump for GGG.
Golovkin to win at 13/20
Golovkin to win by decision or technical decision 9/4
Golovkin v Alvarez I highlights
