By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin offered the same advice to anyone who’ll have to choose between buying their pay-per-view fight or Mayweather-McGregor three weeks earlier.
Mexico’s Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs) and Kazakhstan’s Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) don’t consider Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s return to the ring against McGregor on August 26 to be “a real fight.” Golovkin went as far as to call the bout between the man who retired as the best boxer in the world and the mixed martial arts superstar “a comedy show.”
The 40-year-old Mayweather (49-0, 26 KOs) will return from nearly a two-year retirement when he meets McGregor in a 12-round, 154-pound boxing match that’ll take place either at T-Mobile Arena or MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas (Showtime Pay-Per-View). Ireland’s McGregor, a two-division UFC champion who has gone 21-3 (18 KOs) in his professional MMA career, has never participated in an amateur or professional boxing match.
“I don’t compete with the show,” Alvarez said through a translator Tuesday night, just before a press conference in The Theater at Madison Square Garden. “I think the people know if they wanna see a show, they’ll see that fight. But if they wanna see a real competitive fight – a real fight – they’ll buy our fight.”
The 35-year-old Golovkin, the IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO middleweight champion, is a slight favorite over the 26-year-old Alvarez a little less than three months before they’ll meet September 16 at T-Mobile Arena (HBO Pay-Per-View). Unlike those that fork over $75 to watch his fight against Alvarez in HD, Golovkin thinks those that pay the probable $100 fee for watching Mayweather-McGregor will be disappointed.
“This is different,” Golovkin said. “If you want to watch a true fight, a true boxing fight, like a classic fight, welcome to September 16th. If you wanna watch show – like, I don’t know, a business show, like a comedy show … Floyd is Floyd. Conor, he is a very good fighter. He’s not a boxer. This is a boxing show. This is different. Everybody understands. I like classics. I like old school.”
When asked if he would watch Mayweather-McGregor, Golovkin said, “I don’t know. Maybe. If I have time. Maybe I’ll go and play hockey with my son.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.