When Canelo Alvarez defends the undisputed super middleweight title against Gennadiy Golovkin in his third fight, he will try to recapture some lost swagger.
The reason? Alvarez is coming off a loss and looks to bounce back when he faces Golovkin on Saturday (DAZN PPV and PPV.com, 8 pm ET) at T-Mobile Arena.
In May, also at T-Mobile Arena, Alvarez moved up in weight and challenged light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol, who outpointed him in an upset and floored him as boxing’s pound-for-pound king. Instead of invoking his contractual right to an immediate rematch, Álvarez opted to finally face GGG, with whom he already had a deal, for a third time.
So Alvarez is making his way back down to super middleweight and Golovkin, the unified middleweight champion, is moving up to challenge him in a long-awaited trilogy. But it will be the first time Alvarez steps into the ring after a loss.
The four-division champion hadn’t lost since dropping a clear decision in a junior middleweight championship fight nearly a decade ago to then-pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather on Sept. 14, 2013, at the MGM Grand.
Alvarez (57-2-2, 39 KOs), 32, of Mexico, claims he quickly put the loss behind him and didn’t stop.
“No one wants to lose, no one likes to lose,” he said. “I feel a lot of pain because I lost. I don’t want to lose But it is what it is and you move on. This is life. It makes me hungrier, more dangerous.
“You take the risk, you take the best fights, the tough fights, and maybe you lose one day. But I’m happy doing these kinds of fights because it makes me feel good. I think my legacy is growing with these types of fights. But I learned a lot and I’m not ashamed of that (loss).”
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In fact, Alvarez has faced numerous top opponents, so he reasoned that a competitive loss to a heavier champion wasn’t the end of the world.
“With Bivol, I am at my best. Unfortunately, I have a lot of things (happening) in my training camp, but it is what it is,” Alvarez said without elaborating. “I lost, but I think I will get my chance in the near future (for a rematch). The difference is that I am at my best when I lost to Bivol, but not in my weight class. But I think I can beat him easily. But things happen and I take that as experience.
“I won the first five, six rounds but then I get tired. That was what happened. But he is not better than me.”
Although Alvarez opted to fight Golovkin (42-1-1, 37 KOs), 40, again instead of a rematch with Bivol, he said he would like that rematch eventually.
“I really wanted the rematch, but (Matchroom Boxing promoter) Eddie (Hearn) said we have a contract to fight Golovkin and we need to make that fight. So that’s why we’re here and I’m happy,” said Álvarez, who could have overruled Hearn in favor of a rematch. “I really wanted it. My team and I decided to fight Golovkin.”
Still, it could happen in the future.
“He needs to win (against Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez on Nov. 5) but I want him,” Alvarez said. “I think we have to see what happens with that fight with Zurdo. I want (the Mexican countryman) Zurdo Ramírez to win. We’ll see. I’m 100 percent focused on this fight (with GGG) and then we’ll see.”
Álvarez said he uses the loss as a life example for his children, daughters Emily Cinnamon, 14, and María Fernanda, 4, and son Saúl Adiel, 4.
“I always tell my kids that it’s not the end of the world if you lose,” Alvarez said. “You are in a sport. You can win, you can lose, but it’s not the end of the world. You need to keep going and keep fighting and one day you will be the best. My daughters, my son always says: ‘You win, you’re the best.’ That motivates me because they know how hard their dad works. They understand and always support me.”
Alvarez’s son is a little boy but has already shown an interest in boxing and goes to the gym with him.
“He’s a little boy but he wants to be a boxer, but we’ll see what happens in the future,” Alvarez said. “I’m his hero. I am his idol and that makes me feel happy and motivated because in his mind I put discipline, hard work, goals, dreams, that way I feel good.
“He is young and maybe he will change his mind, but if he wants to be a boxer, I need to support him, right? If he wants to be a champion he has to train as if he were a champion. Just because his dad is a champion doesn’t mean you’re going to be a champion. It is not like this. You need to train and have that talent to be a boxer, to be a good boxer.”
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Although Alvarez accepted the loss to Bivol as he did the loss to Mayweather, he thinks only of the victory against Golovkin.
“I can not lose. I can’t lose,” she said. “This fight will be a great victory for me. I think it’s going to be a tough fight. I think it’s going to be a tough fight every round, but I’ll finish the fight in the last few rounds: nine, 10, 11, around that.”
He wants to knock out Golovkin and has even said he wants to end his career because he is still mad at him for what he believes has been the disrespect of saying unflattering things about him behind his back but never to his face. He’s not even sure he’s going to shake GGG’s hand after Saturday’s fight.
“I don’t know. I don’t know why in the second fight we did that and I think everything is fine and then after the fight, he starts talking about me,” Alvarez said. “So from my side, everything was fine and I always respect my opponents before and after, but this time I don’t know.”
