Going Out Like a Lion — Canelo-Golovkin 2
Golovkin is older, but not old enough for Canelo
All that was left was two men standing in the ring after months of back-and-forth between the two camps. The bell rang and it wasn’t round 13. Instead, it was round 1 of an even better fight. And in this installment, Canelo kept his promise to deliver a firefight from the start. It was unusual to see a fighter who has spent a career as a counter-puncher pressuring the stalking now-former middleweight menace, breaking him down punch-by-punch.
From the first punches landed it was clear that Oscar De La Hoya had finally gotten what he wanted: Gennady Golovkin finally aged just right for the taking. The difference from the first fight was drastic: Canelo was faster, crisper, and more intimidating. Gennady could not match the pace Canelo was dictating and had to back up and go to the basics: jabbing and moving. Three rounds in, it looked like Golovkin had little business to do in the ring with Canelo landing at will, bouncing Gennady’s head like a tennis ball all around the ring.
As rounds went by, Golovkin’s face along with Abel Sanchez’s cornerwork lead the viewers to a tough conclusion. Abel Sanchez’s plan to fight Canelo the same way they did last September was a failure — (surprisingly!) the counter-puncher had made the necessary adjustments and came out knowing exactly how he should handle Gennady’s offence. Golovkin was left all alone with a difficult task — to get back to the basics, make necessary defensive adjustments and try to put Canelo on a back foot.
But Golovkin overcame. He made the effective adjustments with footwork, timing and attack patterns, demonstrating his class, taking away Canelo’s left hook to the head, finding ahome for his own shots, evening the fight and making it close. By round 9 Canelo, who in the past 12 months had been working on his stamina, agility, and speed started to gas after controlling the first half of the fight.
That’s when it turned into an even more dramatic sequel. Gennady Golovkin fought off Canelo, hurting him in the 10th, and making him go life-and-death in the remaining championship rounds. Born to essentially different generations, left waiting for a big fight to come for years, having to cope with second-rate opposition and growing frustration, Golovkin channelled everything into his fists. He backed up every insult he threw at Canelo, he backed up everything he achieved prior, he backed up his honor and his legacy. He went out like a true warrior.
At the end of the twelve rounds of an instant classic we were ready to hear the judges scorecards — and they did not dissapoint. Canelo won a well-deserved decision, ending the age of Golovkin’s dominance over one of the weakest periods in middleweight history. But the victory is bittersweet. When the hype will die, the truth will be clear. In his best fight yet, Saul Alvarez had barely edged a 36-year-old veteran came out into the ring with wrong gameplan. He had failed to defeat Golovkin a year ago. And he would’ve not done it if Golovkin was younger.
Despite both the WBA and WBC having mandatories for Canelo’s newly won belts, the future of Middleweight Supremacy will be decided outside the ring in the following months. Saul Alvarez’s contract with HBO is over and he’s free to work with any network. Once again, the destiny of the middleweight division will be dictated by Oscar De La Hoya, who will have to choose between PBC, DAZN and ESPN. It may also lead to Canelo vacating the WBC once again to avoid meeting Jermall Charlo who is working with Oscar’s lifelong nemesis Al Haymon. And we know how salty Oscar is about those who crossed him in the past.
