To a sizable portion of the boxing fan base, a decisive Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez win over Gennadiy Golovkin (DAZN PPV) would be a first. For that sizable portion, Alvarez hasn’t really ever defeated Golovkin at all.
Their second fight, a majority decision in 2018 scored for Alvarez, was razor thin either way. Reasonable minds can and do disagree on that one. Alvarez got the nod.
The first, in 2017, was beset with a scoring controversy not just because of the draw verdict but also a single absurd score card favoring Alvarez in ten of twelve rounds. There were those who agreed with the draw (this site’s live scoring settled there) but the path that officially arrived there tainted the outcome terribly.
The majority of the press scored the first bout for Golovkin.
Heading into the third fight some four years after the rematch, a lot has changed. Over eight fights, Alvarez (57-2-2, 39 KO), 32, moved on to defend the lineal middleweight crown he retained twice versus Golovkin, won a belt at light heavyweight, and unified the super middleweight division. His activity level and accomplishments made it difficult to call anyone else the pound-for-pound king of boxing.
Golovkin (42-1-1, 37 KO), 40, has fought just three times. In a debatable but exciting decision win over Sergiy Derevyanchenko, Golovkin regained the IBF belt and added the WBA strap in his last outing with a stoppage of Olympic Gold medalist Ryota Murata. It’s hard not to think we’ve seen some passing of the time even in victories. Golovkin has looked slower, more hittable, and less explosive.
Has time caught up or has inactivity been an enemy? Could Golovkin have one more big night in him just five months removed from his Murata?
Only one of the two men in Saturday’s main event is coming off a win.
For everything he did since the second Golovkin fight, Alvarez enters this fight no longer the pound-for-pound leader he was at the end of 2021. In May, Alvarez took his second crack at a light heavyweight belt and rolled snake eyes. Sometimes listless, often frustrated, Alvarez couldn’t solve the riddle of Dmitri Bivol and lost a wide decision.
Alvarez will resume his business after his first loss in years with a return to his most heated rival, a rival who many believe has reached a point where he’s too old to get the job done.
Sound familiar?
It should.
Comparisons and analogies are inexact sciences to be sure but it’s hard not to see some similarities between Alvarez-Golovkin III and Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez IV.
Entering 2012, the biggest fight in boxing, the fight between what for many were the 1A and 1B in the pound-for-pound race (and certainly in the welterweight division), would have been Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. It hadn’t happened yet.
It wouldn’t happen for several more years.
At the end of 2012, it was easy to think it wasn’t going to happen at all. Pacquiao lost both his starts that year, to Tim Bradley and then to Marquez in one of the great fights of all time. Both men came off the floor. Pacquiao was glued into it with a single right hand just before the bell to end round six.
Superstar fighters get to their position in part because they don’t lose often. They rarely lose two straight while still perceived as near the top of their game. Pacquiao rebounded, winning two against Bradley and upsetting Keith Thurman to remind of his place with the greats. He never quite reached the same real time regard he had before his fateful 2012.
No, this weekend isn’t the same. Pacquiao-Bradley I is still a largely reviled decision while there isn’t any debate about Alvarez-Bivol. Pacquiao’s loss to Marquez also shouldn’t have been shocking; their third fight just one year before was narrowly called in Pacquiao’s favor with a loud, angry mass that still thinks Marquez got screwed in that one.
The similarity is close enough to merit a thought.
If Alvarez can avoid defeat, if he can use his youth and skill to finally end this rivalry decisively in his favor, the ball remains in his court in a way few others enjoy. There could be a Bivol rematch. There could be super middleweight clashes with David Benavidez or Jermall Charlo and all the riches any of those fights can generate.
But…
From the top of the world to finally being defeated by the rival who has chased you as their grail isn’t a story we have seen that many times. It’s probably not the story we’re going to see this weekend.
Still, it’s possible, and we have seen it before. Where Alvarez would go from there, from a loss to Golovkin relatively few think likely, would be the story of star in freefall.
Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, a member of the International Boxing Research Organization, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com
