Super middleweight boxers Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin face off during Grand Arrivals at the MGM Grand lobby Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022. The boxers will fight for the third time in a super middleweight championship fight at T-Mobile Arena on Saturday.
Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022 | 2 a.m.
Gennady “GGG” Golovkin sits on one side of the dais with perfect upright posture and a blank expression while Saul “Canelo” Álvarez hunches over on the other and scowls as he calls the two champion boxers’ upcoming third bout “personal.”
“He pretends to be a nice guy, but he’s not,” Álvarez says of Golovkin to kick off the fight’s media tour in LA. “He’s an asshole.”
For perhaps the first time in his career, the 32-year-old Mexican superstar is actively pushing a grudge going into a fight — even if the feeling hasn’t been reciprocated by Golovkin.
“I really don’t understand what he’s talking about, because, after the second fight, we shook hands,” the 40-year-old from Kazakhstan says through a translator. “I believe that put everything behind us back then. If he says he still has something against me, that’s his problem, not mine.”
Canelo vs. GGG 3
When: September 17, main card 5 p.m., headliner ring walks expected around 8 p.m.
Where:T-Mobile Arena
Pay-per-view:$65, dazn.com
Betting line:Alvarez -425 (i.e. risking $425 to win $100) vs. Golovkin +345 (i.e. risking $100 to win $345)
Titles at stake: WBA, WBC, WBO, IBF and the Ring super middleweight (186 pounds)
Álvarez’s contention with Golovkin going into their trilogy match Saturday at T-Mobile Arena feels at best petty and at worst manufactured. Feigning derision to sell pay-per-views is straight out of the Combat Sports 101 playbook, but it’s a bit disappointing that “Canelo vs. GGG 3” is following the manual.
That’s because this matchup between two of the best boxers of the modern era didn’t initially require any of the usual stunts. Their pairing came together naturally ahead of their first meeting in September 2017 at T-Mobile, with both holding major middleweight titles after having wiped out all other contenders.
What followed was the rare “superfight” that lived up to the billing, with both fighters engaging and having their moments in a 12-round showdown that went the distance. It couldn’t escape all of boxing’s usual trappings, however, as controversy arose when the scores were read.
Most believed the favored Golovkin won a close fight — a position punching statistics backed up — but judge Adalaide Byrd inexplicably scored it 118-110 in favor of Álvarez in what has gone down as one of the most notorious tallies in boxing history. With the other two judges seeing it as a draw and a narrow victory for Golovkin, the fight was ruled a split draw.
An immediate rematch made sense, as did the small amount of hostility that flared given the disputed nature of how the first fight had ended. But bad blood never became the driving point of interest heading into the rematch a year later in September 2018.
This was still two all-time great fighters facing off at the peak of their powers. They delivered inside the ring at T-Mobile again, this time with slightly less controversy.
Álvarez upset Golovkin with a majority decision despite getting outlanded for the second straight fight between the two. Many thought Golovkin deserved the victory, but Álvarez was more aggressive, and none of the scores were as outlandish as Byrd’s the first time around.
Golovkin himself appeared at peace with the decision, congratulating and embracing Álvarez in the ring.
“That’s what I think in the fight: That’s it, we shake hands,” Álvarez says. “But after that, he starts talking. It don’t make sense.”
Golovkin hasn’t said all that much in the four years since, however — at least not anything that many others aren’t also saying. He has expressed his belief that he did enough to win both fights when asked, but not in a way demeaning to Álvarez. Golovkin also described Álvarez’s 2019 unanimous-decision win over Daniel Jacobs as “a little boring.”
Álvarez has fought eight times since he last faced Golovkin, but none of them have attracted near as much interest. Álvarez’s latest bout was a stunning upset, when a move up to light heavyweight backfired with a unanimous-decision loss to Dmitry Bivol in May at T-Mobile Arena.
A cynic might say his diminished stock finally led Álvarez back to Golovkin, who has been calling for a third meeting for years. “We couldn’t get them to fight us,” Golovkin says. “They were avoiding the fight every way possible.”
It’s still one of the biggest money pairings in boxing, even though it’s not expected to reach the heights of the first two versions. The first fight produced 1.3 million pay-per-view buys and a $27 million live gate, and the second sold 1.1 million pay-per-views and $24.5 million in tickets.
Golovkin hasn’t lost in four appearances since the Álvarez defeat, but he has looked uncharacteristically human as he has aged out of the traditional prime for boxers. For the first time in the trilogy, Álvarez will enter as a big favorite.
The hope is that both men can provide one last show that lives up to the high standard set the first two times they shared the ring. They have proven they’re capable of staging a spectacle above the average boxing event, even though the way Álvarez has tried to promote this fight feels all too familiar.
“Whatever problems we have, we are going to meet in the ring and resolve it,” Golovkin says.
This story appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.
