The time is right for the faster, primer Canelo Álvarez to put it all together against Gennady Golovkin, whose pace and pressure are not what they once were
This is a closer fight in the public eye today than it was two years ago when it first became an obligation. Back then, after Gennady Golovkin’s eight-round destruction of David Lemieux and Canelo Álvarez’s career-best win over Miguel Cotto for the lineal middleweight title (at a catchweight of 155lbs), few would have fancied Álvarez over the Kazakh puncher known as Triple G, who’d spent the better part of a decade ripping through the division with a rare blend of patience, technique and concussive power in both hands, fighting up to four times a year in a concentrated effort to build his value as an attraction.
I always believed Álvarez had a set of skills that could trouble Golovkin – even that Golovkin – starting with hand speed, punch variety and a slick defense that flows from deft footwork to superior upper body movement. All those attributes have improved in the last two years. The heavy-handed Golovkin’s once-relentless pace and body attack, less so. And while it’s a bit harsh to chart the undefeated Kazakh’s decline based on the lone night in nearly a decade he failed to stop his opponent inside the distance, Danny Jacobs showed that a world class operator with the correct tactics could stem a tide that had previously felt beyond negotiation. Jacobs was the best Golovkin had ever been in with. Until Saturday, that is.
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