By Miguel Rivera
Former two division unified champion, Bernard Hopkins, is standing firm on his prediction that Canelo Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) will easily defeat IBF, IBO, WBA, WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) in a potential rematch.
The two boxers fought to a controversial twelve round split draw, last month at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Now the sides are in serious discussions to do a second fight on May 5th, as part of Cinco De Mayo weekend.
Hopkins is expecting a mirror image of what happened between light heavyweights Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev.
Ward won a controversial twelve round unanimous decision over Kovalev last November. When they collided in their June rematch, Ward won in much easier fashion with a TKO victory.
Of course Hopkins has his reasons to fully back Canelo. The retired future Hall of Famer is an executive with Golden Boy Promotions, who guide the career of Canelo.
"For me [Canelo[Golovkin] will be the reincarnation of Ward and Kovalev, and this is what will happen: In history, when there is a rematch, there is usually a fighter who gets the other's number, and by the way Canelo handled it, his timing, his confidence, the fact that the monster is not that monster, that he's a man... as an athlete Canelo will think, 'I got into his fire and I survived it, it was not easy, but I tried his fire and we saw that it is not so bad as they said,' so Canelo will come stronger, super confident, and in this second fight will make things easier," Hopkins told ESPN Deportes.
"Golden Boy wants to give fans the fights they want to see, the best quality and only the best for fans. That fight is going to take place, I hope, in May of the following year. The difference is that Canelo will win, but hopefully we can give them that second fight."