Canelo Alvarez was surprised to hear his former promoter Oscar De La Hoya, said that he views Gennadiy ‘GGG’ Golovkin as an “easy” fight for him in 2021 when he returns to the ring.
Canelo has twice fought Golovkin and was lucky to escape with a win and a draw, and he feels that it’s easy to say stuff, but it’s a different story when you get in there.
De La Hoya, 47, wants to come back against a top fighter next year, and he sees IBF middleweight champion Golovkin (40-1-1, 35 KOs) as possessing the perfect style for him to be victorious.
“I really have no words for that. It’s very easy to say stuff, but once you’re in the ring, it’s a different world,” said Canelo to the AK & Barak Show @SiriusXMBoxing in reacting to De La Hoya’s comment about Golovkin being an “easy” comeback fight for him in 2021.
Golovkin, 38, is fighting this Friday night in defending his IBF 160-lb title against mandatory Kamil Szeremeta (21-0, 5 KOs) live on DAZN at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida.
If Golovkin destroys the unbeaten Polish fighter Szeremeta, we’ll need to see if De La Hoya (39-6, 30 KOs) is still motivated to fight him.
De La Hoya will be turning 48 in two months on February 4th, and he hasn’t fought since losing to Manny Pacquiao by an eighth-round knockout in December 2008.
Oscar has the boxing know-how to defeat GGG, but the youth, size, and power won’t be there.
Golovkin has been undermining his own career as of late with him fighting Sergiy Derevanchenko and now Szeremeta rather than moving up to 168 to go after the bigger fights.
GGG put a lot of effort into winning the vacant IBF middleweight title last year in October 2019 in beating Derevanchenko. It was a grueling fight that did nothing for GGG’s career.
Canelo is facing WBA super-middleweight champion Callum Smith (27-0, 19 KOs) this Saturday night in a risky fight on DAZN at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
It’s a tough fight fon paper for Canelo, 5’8″, because he’s giving away a lot of height and power against the 6’3″ Callum.
“I think Callum Smith wins without a shadow of a doubt. He’s just too big,” said George Groves to Fighthype about Callum being too big for Canelo Alvarez.
“I mean, Alvarez is a quality operator, and one of the pound-for-pound best. If they were the same size, then I’d go with Canelo, but they’re not.
“But the height, reach, size advantages that Smith has, I don’t believe Canelo can contend with, and if he did, I don’t think it would be the fight that we hope it would be.
“It would be him just trying to nick it. I don’t see why on earth Alvarez would need to fight the biggest super-middleweight on the planet, who is #1 in the division, punching hard and been doing the job,” said Groves.
George Groves know what it’s like to be in the ring with Callum, as he was stopped in the seventh round by him in 2018 when the two met in the final of the World Boxing Super Series tournament.