By Sean Jones: Sergio Mora predicts a stoppage win for Canelo Alvarez tonight against Gennadiy Golovkin at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Mora is choosing Canelo, 32, based on his youth, seeing him as the “newer” fighter of the two despite his 17 years in the pro ranks.
Canelo looked much older than his chronological age in his last fight against Dmitry Bivol. The Mexican star fought like a poorly trained 38-year-old who had no ability to adapt.
That fight showed that Canelo has accelerated aging, which has been well disguised due to him taking it in stride fighting mainly weak competition from Europe over the last four years.
Canelo was able to hide his aging by beating these paper champions:
Billy Joe Saunders Caleb Plant Rocky Fielding Callum Smith Sergey Kovalev
When Canelo finally got there with a fighter who could actually fight WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol, his aging was exposed.
Assuming Mora is right about his prediction, it would mark the end of Canelo’s five-year rivalry with the 40-year-old Golovkin, as that would technically make him 2-0-1.
Some would say a Canelo win tonight would even him at 1-1-1, as many fight fans saw the first fight as a win for Golovkin and the second fight as a draw.
Canelo and his team are counting on Golovkin to perform as he did in his fights against Ryota Murata and Sergiy Derevyanchenko. Golovkin looked bad in both contests and showed his age.
On the other hand, Canelo looked much worse in his last fight against Dmitry Bivol, losing a 12-round unanimous decision that was scored 115-113 x 3 by all three judges.
The fight score was almost as bad as the first Canelo-Golovkin fight, as Canelo was outboxed by Bivol and deserved to win only two rounds.
If that version of Canelo shows up tonight, Golovkin has an excellent chance of winning, even if he’s past his prime.
Golovkin would only need to average 35 punches thrown per round to outclass Canelo dramatically, but that’s assuming he doesn’t get hurt to the body like he did against Murata and Derevyanchenko.
“I don’t think it will make it to the final bell. We are going to get a knockout,” Sergio Mora told DAZN News. “A Canelo knockout will happen, and it will signal a sweet end to a bitter rivalry.
“Most likely, Canelo will get it because he is the younger, fresher fighter. But he’s coming off a loss, so these are all things for Golovkin, coming off a couple of good wins.
“He has only lost to Canelo in contested fights. But he has been hurt in the body in his last two fights, and it is something that Canelo is going to emphasize,” Mora said.
“Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin have the most granite chins. You just saw a couple of body feints and wince when [Ryota] Murata was hitting that body [of Golovkin in Japan]”, Eddie Hearn told the DAZN Boxing Show.
“Again, he [Golovkin] He was at 160, and I don’t think he could have mentally prepared himself for that fight the way he has for this one,” Hearn continued.
“On the stage [during Friday’s weigh-in, he [Golovkin] I had to wait five minutes for Canelo Alvarez to get there, but he’s still calm and just says, ‘I understand.’ You saw the little line from him there, ‘You know who the champion is.’
“It’s still burning inside of him, and he’s taking that fire with him tomorrow night at T-Mobile,” Hear said of Golovkin.
