Roberto Duran Breaks Down Golovkin-Canelo - Expects a War

By Elisinio Castillo

Boxing legend Roberto "Hands of Stone" Duran is really looking forward to next month's battle between Gennady Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) and Saul "Canelo" Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs).

Golovkin defends his IBF, IBO, WBA, WBC middleweight titles against Canelo on September 16th from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Canelo returns from a dominating twelve round decision win over Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in May. Golovkin had a much tougher fighter than many expected, when he won a twelve round decision over Daniel Jacobs in March.

Duran is not making an official prediction, because of his relationship with both fighters.

"I'm going to reserve my prediction, because I'm a friend to both of them," Duran told Julio Alfaro.

Duran did admit that Golovkin's last ring appearance caused some concern. He felt Golovkin took too many punches from Jacobs and also failed to do enough to close the show. Jacobs became the first boxer to take Golovkin the full twelve round distance. GGG had knocked out his previous 23 opponents.

At the same time, Duran says the winner will be the fighter who is able to showcase the better chin and the better physical resolve. Both boxers are predicting a victory by knockout.

"When Golovkin fought with the gringo Jacobs, he received a lot of punches. Golovkin had Jacobs in a bad situation several times, but he did not know how to finish him off. On the other hand, the Mexican is by nature a brave boxer and when you bring [a Mexican boxer] to fight, they give everything in the ring," Duran said.

"It will be a very tough fight, because the two of them hit hard. In this fight, the one who will survive is the one who is capable of handling the other's punch, and for me that will be the one who will take the victory."