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By Steve Kim
When WBC, WBA, IBO middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (38-0-1, 34 KOs) faces Saul "Canelo" Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) for the second time on Saturday night from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, his trainer will instruct him to come out much quicker than he did during their first meeting last year.
"Absolutely, absolutely, we've discussed that. I hope that we don't take three rounds to warm up and give him three rounds, which is what we did in the first fight or close to three rounds I should say. I think if we don't do that we have a good chance of going into the seventh, eighth, ninth round in a manner that someone's getting knocked out because not only will they have gotten hit, they're gotten hurt, also," said Abel Sanchez to BoxingScene.com.
In September of 2017, at the same Las Vegas venue, the two heated rivals fought to a controversial twelve round split draw. One judge scored a mind-boggling 118-110 for Canelo, with the next judge going 115-113 for Golovkin and an even split of 114-114 from the third.
Coming into this rematch, Canelo has vowed to do everything possible and promises to score a stoppage of Golovkin.
"I know that I can hurt him. I hurt him in the first fight, and I'm going to hurt him even more in the second fight. My objective is the knockout and I'll be looking for that from the opening round," Canelo said.
So does Sanchez believe those statements?
"I tend not to but I would hope so because I think that will give us the kind of fight, in closer range so that they will hit each other and at least give us an exciting fight and may the best man win," he answered.
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com