Canelo Alvarez is expected to utilize the same blueprint that he employed in his second fight with Gennadiy Golovkin to defeat him by forcing him to battle while going backwards.
After the first contest in 2017, Canelo discovered that Golovkin (42-1-1, 37 KOs) is incapable of fighting while going backwards. As such, Canelo told his trainer Eddy Reynoso that he intended to force GGG to back up by pressuring him constantly, and the plan worked.
For the trilogy fight this Saturday, Canelo will likely dust off the blueprint from his last fight with Golovkin to use it once again.
Canelo will obviously be counting on Golovkin giving ground as he did against him last time, and as he did in his fights with Ryota Murata and Sergiy Derevyanchenko went, they applied pressure with body shots.
Golovkin’s trainer Johnathon Banks doesn’t want him to back up, but thus far, he’s not been able to follow his instructions. Golovkin tends to give ground whenever he’s attacked, and he backed up when fighting welterweight Kell Brook.
That’s a flaw that the 40-year-old GGG likely won’t shake before Saturday. If Golovkin can put pressure on Canelo, throw sustained combinations and employ his powerful jab, he’ll have a decent chance of winning.
Dmitry Bivol beat Canelo by throwing combinations, hitting him with jabs, and keeping a tight guard to pick off his shots when he was stationary. Golovkin isn’t as adept at blocking shots as Bivol is, so it’s unrealistic to assume that he’s going to be able to block Canelo’s punches the way that Bivol did.
Throwing combinations would be a good idea for Golovkin, but that’s something he’s shown an ability to do. Golovkin tends to carefully pick spots to throw single shots. He tends to wait before throwing his punches, and that led to him getting hit a lot by Canelo in their first two fights.
If Golovkin threw combinations, he would keep Canelo occupied trying to block shots, as we saw in his fight against Bivol.
“The way that fight played out, you thought there was a better chance of Golovkin duplicating it than Canelo doing something different,” said Chris Mannix to DAZN’s The Making of a Trilogy about the aftermath of the first fight between Gennadiy Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez.
“What I remember from that fight was Golovkin and his trainer Abel Sanchez just trying to bait Canelo into a street fight. Just saying to anyone with a microphone, ‘He won’t stand and trade with us. He’s going to move and try and outbox us. He doesn’t want to fight Mexican style against us.'”
“I guess Abel Sanchez had a lot to say because his fighter was my opponent,” said Canelo. “He had to somewhat sell his fighter and sell the fight and talk about something.
“In the end, he just wanted people to support them. In the end, I’m Mexican. Boxing the Mexican way or not. I represent Mexico,” Canelo said.
“I think saying that Canelo doesn’t fight the Mexican way was a mistake by Abel Sanchez,” said trainer Eddy Reynoso. “To have the Mexican style, you have to be Mexican. Saul is Mexican.”
“In the first fight, we used the counterattack more; we worked on the legs more. We waited for Golovkin to attack. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn’t.
“We had to go to him. I think we should have thrown more punches in that fight. We knew the easiest rounds, Saul had won were when he pushed Golovkin back.
“So we weren’t warming up. We started the first round like it was the 13th,” said Reynoso.
“I said to Eddy, ‘He doesn’t know how to go back. To beat him, you have to attack.’ He told me, ‘You’re absolutely right.’ So we prepared like that, going forward.
“First from the bell, we made a plan to force Golovkin backwards, with waist movements, with feints, with combinations,” said Reynoso.
