LAS VEGAS – For the fifth time since their trilogy fight was announced, bitter rivals Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin stood eye to eye and stared undeterred into each other’s eyes one last time before finally fighting again.
They clashed at the two stops of their media tour in Los Angeles and New York and then this week at the grand arrivals on Tuesday and the press conference on Thursday before facing off once again at the end of a ceremonial weigh-in on Friday night. later on a stage outside of T-Mobile Arena, where they will fight for the third time on Saturday (DAZN PPV and PPV.com, 8 pm ET).
Thousands packed Toshiba Plaza in front of the arena on the fifth anniversary of Canelo-GGG I to see the wrestlers and cheer, primarily for Álvarez, on Mexican Independence Day weekend.
Hours earlier, at the official behind-closed-door weigh-in at the MGM Grand, Alvarez weighed in at 167.4 pounds for his first defense of the undisputed super middleweight title and moving up in weight, unified middleweight champion Golovkin was 167.8, the most of his career.
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The first fight was declared a split draw, one of the most controversial decisions in boxing history; most thought Golovkin, who retained the unified middleweight title, clearly won. In September 2018, they met again and Alvarez won a controversial majority decision to end GGG’s middleweight title reign in another exciting and hard-hitting fight.
Four years later, they are reunited with all those years of bad blood simmering a large part of the promotion. 1, 37 KOs), 40, a native of Kazakhstan fighting out of Santa Monica, Calif., who has never been knocked down in his career. Álvarez reiterated his wish on stage.
“That’s what I want, but I know it won’t be easy,” Alvarez said. “He is a great fighter and I want to finish him in 12 rounds, and I will be looking for that from the first round.”
When asked about Alvarez’s knockout wishes, GGG was brief in his response.
“No comment,” he said, later adding, “If you’re a true boxing fan, you know who the real champion is.”
WATCH US discuss Canelo-Golovkin with some game tips from our weekly BetUS Friday boxing show,
WBC junior bantamweight champion Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez (16-0, 11 KOs), 22, of San Antonio weighed in at 114.8 pounds for his second title defense and challenger Israel Gonzalez (28-4-1, 11 KOs), 25, of Mexico, who will get his fourth title shot, was 114.6.
Weights for the rest of the card: Ali Akhmedov 167.8, Gabriel Rosado 167.6; Austin Williams 160, Kieron Conway 159.2; Diego Pacheco 167, Enrique Collazo 167.8; Marc Castro 134.4, Kevin Montiel Mendoza 135.2; Aaron Aponte 139.8; Fernando Molina 140; Anthony Herrera 114.8, Delvin McKinley 116.
