Golovkin: This Fight Was More Tactical, Like Chess, Canelo Was Better

Gennadiy Golovkin had no excuses for his lack of activity in many of the rounds in the trilogy matchup with Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez.

At the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Canelo (58-2-2, 39 KOs) dominated Golovkin (42-2-1, 37 KOs) for most of the fight by a twelve-round unanimous decision to retain the title. super indisputable. middleweight crown

The scores were 116-112, 115-113 and 115-113.

Most observers saw the fight going much wider in favor of Canelo. Most ringside scorecards gave Golovkin no more than two or three rounds.

Golovkin, now 40 and inactive for the past few years, was very hesitant, especially in the first eight rounds, before finally starting to open up more often in the ninth.

Golovkin admits he was too wary of being countered by Canelo, much faster.

“Everyone knows who Canelo is, everyone knows [that if you take] one wrong move, you lose the fight,” Golovkin said.

“You [can] lose [from] one hit, you lose the fight. Look at his face, look at my face. We are like this because it was a high level fight because we trained well and we had a very good quality fight. This fight was more tactical, like chess. Today Canelo was better.”

The trilogy fight lacked the punch and drama of the first two meetings.

In their first meeting, in 2017, they fought to a controversial twelve-round split draw. There were many who felt that Golovkin should have been the winner. The rematch, which took place a year later, saw Canelo win a very close majority decision over twelve rounds. It was a close fight that could have gone either way.