Win, lose or draw, Gennadiy Golovkin’s legacy will not be decided Saturday night against Canelo Álvarez, according to his coach
It says a lot for Gennadiy Golovkin’s career that the fight billed as “Legacy,” scheduled for this Saturday (September 17) against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, is one that Golovkin’s trainer, Johnathon Banks, doesn’t feel will impact fans. large. Kazakh in one way or another.
Win, the American says, and Golovkin, 42-1-1 (37), will rightly rise up the fabled pound-for-pound ranking. Losing, however, that of course is a result Golovkin’s team refuses to consider, and the 40-year-old’s career or legacy will continue to be held in the highest esteem.
“Canelo doesn’t make or break his career,” Banks told Boxing News. “His career was consolidated even before he fought Canelo. Canelo doesn’t do the G run at all.
“It’s the same for Canelo. He still would have accomplished the things he has accomplished with or without G. They both have Hall of Fame careers with or without each other.
“This doesn’t move the needle at all. It’s just a new challenge and a different kind of fight. This fight keeps G in the same state he is already in. All it means is that you can go back to the pound-for-pound list, if that’s what you want to do, and put them in order. But really, for G, it’s just the next challenge. It’s not about who he is.”
Despite this claim, much of what makes Canelo vs. GGG III works as a fight, as a rivalry and as a franchise is the very fact that it involves two men who have been inextricably linked since they first fought in 2017. So they are, in that sense, important to each other, albeit more in a way. business sense than, if you’re willing to believe Banks, a sense of legacy.
Regardless of whether it can be improved or not, Golovkin’s legacy is undoubtedly solid. So far beaten only by Alvarez, in a controversial decision in 2018, the heavy-handed middleweight champion continues to promote the old adage that the last thing a fighter loses is his punch, and what he may lack now is speed. and reflections. he makes up for the experience and knowledge of the rings.
“It’s just a freak of nature,” Banks said. “He has massive punching power and he had a lot of amateur experience. That alone allows him to be a wrecking ball in the boxing world. It’s the same with Canelo. Canelo has a lot of experience with the amateurs and the pros: he was beating men when he was a young phenom. It’s like a wrecking ball going in. A lot of fighters with that kind of extensive fighting history are always prepared to do well.
“Throughout his career, G has smothered opponents with his experience, his fundamentals and his feet. He took advantage of that during his amateur career and now I’m trying to take it to another level. I’m trying to revive your fan movement and just step it up. Let’s move more, move sharper and break the movement.”
If, for much of his career, Golovkin’s greatest threat, and the thorn in his side, has been Canelo Álvarez, the fear now, quite naturally, is that Canelo has been replaced by Father Time, the ultimate opponent for most aging warriors. . However, Banks, a man who sees him in the gym every day, has no such worries. In fact, he goes so far as to say that Golovkin, at 40, is still the same fighter he was when he started working with him, and for that reason, he’s not worried about seeing him reunite with Alvarez four years after their last meeting.
“It’s unbelievable at 40,” Banks said. “There’s nothing I’m trying to do that he can’t do. But obviously I’m used to working with older athletes (including former heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko), so I know what to expect. I wasn’t working with him when I was younger, but I can tell he’s the same guy he was when I started working with him.
“Obviously he can still be taught things, but both fighters will go into this fight knowing they know each other. What makes it interesting, though, is that neither fighter fights now the same way they did four years ago. Canelo was more of a traditional boxer back then, whereas he is now keeping his hands up and moving forward. He was also the smaller guy last time, so they had to fight at a catchweight. But now he is too big to bring the weight back down. This will be a completely different fight.”
