By Keith Idec
LAS VEGAS – Canelo Alvarez displayed a granite chin once again against one of boxing’s biggest punchers Saturday night.
The determined Mexican superstar survived Gennady Golovkin persistent pressure, took the defending champion’s most damaging shots well and kept fighting hard during their 12-round middleweight title fight at T-Mobile Arena. Alvarez admitted following their 12-round draw that Golovkin’s power was unlike anything he had encountered in his first 51 professional fights, but added that it wasn’t quite as devastating as everyone has made it out to be.
“He has power,” Alvarez said through a translator during their post-fight press conference. “It’s a different power than others I faced. But he’s also not the monster that everybody was talking about. I didn’t feel that.”
The 27-year-old Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) became the second straight opponent to take Golovkin the 12-round distance.
Former WBA middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs (32-2, 29 KOs) also went 12 rounds against Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) in a title fight the Kazakhstan native narrowly won by unanimous decision March 18 at Madison Square Garden in New York. Brooklyn’s Jacobs, who recovered from a fourth-round knockdown, snapped Golovkin’s 23-fight knockout streak.
While Alvarez wasn’t overwhelmed by Golovkin’s power, he admitted he had to be wary of his opponent’s heavy hands even when he thought he had Golovkin in some trouble early in the 10th round. That was when Alvarez connected with multiple combinations and landed a straight right hand to the middle of Golovkin’s face, which helped knock Golovkin off-balance as he three a counter-punch Alvarez avoided.
“I wanted to knock him out,” Alvarez said. “I wanted to finish it right there, but we’ve gotta remember I didn’t have just any opponent. I didn’t have an easy opponent. I had a strong opponent – complicated, experienced and it didn’t unfold like that, like I would’ve wanted to.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
