By Ryan Burton
Future Hall of Famer and Golden Boy shareholder Bernard Hopkins was very impressed with Canelo Alvarez's performance against Gennady Golovkin on September 16th.
The blockbuster pay-per-view event took place in front of a record crowd at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The two boxers fought to a controversial twelve round split draw. The final scores were 115-113 for Golovkin, 114-114 and Adalaide Byrd's infamous 118-110 score for Alvarez.
Hopkins agreed that Byrd's scorecard was too wide and said that he scored the bout a much more reasonable 115-113 for Canelo.
He also said that even though the bout ended in a draw that the 27-year-old Mexican should move up on the pound-for-pound list.
"I think he's top three or top four," said Hopkins.
Both fighters have expressed interest in a rematch and Cinco De Mayo weekend 2018, May 5th, is the targeted date with Las Vegas likely hosting the event again. Golden Boy is currently negotiating with Tom Loeffler, who runs Golovkin's GGG Promotions.
Canelo (49-1-2, 34 KOs) has already made it clear that he wants the rematch with Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) as his first bout of the new year.
Hopkins said that if the fight does happen again he expects Canelo to perform even better than in the first fight. In fact, he doesn't expect him to have much trouble at all in the rematch.
"If you look at all rematches mostly in boxing, one guy usually wins easy. Canelo will win easy. That doesn't mean he don't have to train like he did for the first fight but right now you gotta understand the Grim Reaper came. You all now realize that he is vulnerable. Don't get your mind clogged with Byrd. You gotta look at, did Triple G live up to your expectations?" Said Hopkins.
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