by David P. Greisman
Sergey Kovalev was once a regular at Big Bear Lake — he sparred with Gennady Golovkin while there, and he saw a famed sparring session between Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez.
“There were like 50/50,” Kovalev recalled. “Canelo looked very good with Gennady. Everybody in the training camp was very interested.”
Boxing scribe Doug Fischer of RingTV.com was there that day and has written about the session multiple times.
“Golovkin was not supposed to give Canelo the ‘full treatment,’ and it was clear from the sparring I saw that he was indeed holding back. Still, Golovkin ‘holding back’ was a lot for Canelo, only 20 at the time, to deal with. And the young man did well. I’d say he held his own, even though he couldn’t hurt Golvokin with his best shots.
“Golovkin hurt Alvarez a few times — a hook at the end of the second round visibly stunned him and some body shots made him wince — but the young man kept his head and found ways to compete even when he was clearly tired (a combination of the altitude and GGG’s pressure) in the last two rounds.”
Of course, sparring is sparring. Alvarez is 26 now and is 47-1-1 with 33 KOs. Golovkin is dominant at 34 years old and is 36-0 with 33 KOs.
And the unsettled business between the lineal middleweight champion (Canelo) and the No. 1 160-pounder (Golovkin) is why Kovalev will be rooting for Alvarez when he faces Liam Smith.
“Let’s make this fight,” he said. “Right now I support Canelo in this fight against Liam Smith because I want to see this fight against Golovkin. “
Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide. Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com
