Canelo Alvarez says Gennadiy Golovkin is talking stupid with his comments this week about wanting to potentially hurt ‘The Golden Boy’ Oscar De La Hoya if he were to fight him.
Canelo (53-1-2, 36 KOs) will be fighting WBA super-middleweight champion Callum Smith (27-0, 19 KOs) this Saturday night at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
Smith’s WBA title will be on the line, as well as the Ring Magazine belt and the vacant WBC 168-lb title. The card will be streamed live on DAZN.
IBF middleweight champion Golovkin (40-1-1, 35 KOs) was reacting to the 47-year-old De La Hoya saying in an interview that GGG would be an “easy” comeback opponent for him next year.
The former six-division world champion De La Hoya (39-6, 30 KOs) hasn’t fought in 12 years since losing to Manny Pacquiao in 2008, and he wants to come back.
The strange part is that De La Hoya doesn’t want to take a tune-up fight. He wants to fight a top fighter, one of the world champions, and Golovkin is someone he would like to face next year.
Alvarez (53-1-2, 36 KOs) points out that the object of boxing is to hurt your opponent, but NOT to kill them. It’s inhumane to be looking to do something like that, Canelo says.
He feels that his former foe Golovkin is talking stupid right now with his comments about De La Hoya.
“Everything involving Gennady Golovkin for him is a nightmare,” Golovkin said to AFP about what a fight between him and De La Hoya would be like. “He can say whatever. But let me put it this way – If I got an opportunity to legally kill a person in the ring, I might seize it,” said GGG.
From Golovkin’s perspective, you can understand why he would be upset with De La Hoya referring to him as an “easy” fight, and it’s a little jarring for him to want to jump straight into a match against him.
Canelo critical of Golovkin
“I think it’s stupidity, he’s just talking stupid because, in the ring, you get up there to hurt them, yes, but not to kill somebody,” said Canelo to Boxing Social in reacting to Golovkin’s comments about potentially hurting De La Hoya if they fought.
“You don’t want to kill somebody there. It’s not humane; it’s not human to do that. So it’s stupidity. He’s talking stupid. It’s not right, and it’s not human to want to kill somebody intentionally.
“I’m very proud of Eddy [Reynoso] that they seek him out to train others,” said Canelo in reacting to other fighters wanting to be trained by his trainer Reynoso. “He is my pride, and I’m very proud of Eddie.
“I have no comment regarding that,” Canelo said when asked about his thoughts on Floyd Mayweather Jr fighting YouTuber Logan Paul in an exhibition match in February.
The comment from Golovkin, 38, about wanting to hurt De La Hoya potentially is out of character for him, as he’s never talked like that before. For GGG to be speaking in those terms, De La Hoya might have hit a nerve by saying he’d be an ‘easy’ fight.
Golovkin hasn’t ruled out fighting celebrity matches in the future, but he didn’t say when. A fight between GGG and De La Hoya would be viewed as a celebrity match because Oscar has been out of the ring for a long time.
It’s a fight that no one would take seriously and view as a competitive sporting match. It would be a business type of fight to get boxing fans the equivalent of junk food or cartoon-level entertainment.
Alvarez believes he’ll focus better
“I don’t know because Saturday is still not here, so we’ll find out,” Canelo said when asked how he’ll react to the crowd.
“I’m focused on the fight, and it’s possible that I won’t be hearing all this yelling and screaming from the fans, and it might help me focus more on the fight.
“It’s going to be a great fight because he’s a fighter that doesn’t just come out to defend himself, he comes out to fight,” said Canelo about Callum Smith.
“He comes to fight, and we’re all aware of that. We’re aware of how he fights. For me, it doesn’t mean anything. I’ve fought taller people, shorter people,” Alvarez said about the 6’3″ Smith’s size advantage over him.
“I have the boxing qualities and experience. So for me, it doesn’t mean anything. I need to win this fight, super important because he is the best at 168 pounds, and that is my intention, my campaign now to unify.
“It’s essential for me and for all my people to win this fight. I feel really well; my body adapts really well to the weight changes.
“I feel really well, and obviously, I’m not at my weight. I feel really well at this weight,” Canelo said.
Canelo prefers to fight more aggressive fighters that slug, and Smith will give the type of wars he likes. The best chance Canelo has of winning is for him to get inside and work Smith’s body the way John Ryder did last year.
Perhaps the season why Canelo selected Callum Smith over David Benavidez, Billy Joe Saunders, and Caleb Plant was how bad he performed against Ryder.
Callum let the weaker, smaller, and slower Ryder to get on the inside and stay there the entire contest. Smith looked ragged towards the end and appeared close to being stopped.
Reynoso expects the 12,000+ crowd to be loud
“There will be 12,000 people, but it will seem like 100,000 because the Mexicans scream a lot,” said Canelo’s trainer Eddy Reynoso to ESPN Deportes about him fighting in front of a small crowd at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas on Saturday.
“It will be Saúl with Smith above the ring, and people influence. We are more used to being in Las Vegas, but now we are focused and concentrated on our hotel, but they will be like a hundred thousand,” said Reynoso.
The size of the crowd won’t likely have any bearing on this fight. If they make a lot of noise in cheering for Canelo, it’ll motivate Smith just as much, and he’ll fight tooth and nail to the bitter end.
If Canelo is going to win this fight, the crowd won’t be the reason. Hopefully, the judges do a good job of scoring the fight because Alvarez has developed a reputation over the years of being given gift decisions when fighting in Las Vegas, Nevada.