After 36 rounds in the ring together over the last five years, Canelo Alvarez finally put a convincing end to his remarkable trilogy with Gennady Golovkin.
The Mexican superstar decisively won his third in-ring encounter with Gennady Golovkin on Saturday night, earning a unanimous decision victory and a clear superiority in their rivalry.
Four years after the fighters’ most recent meeting ended in a narrowly contested victory for Álvarez (58-2-2, 39 KOs), the four-division world champion left little doubt about this verdict, even though he won by just 115-113 on two judges’ scorecards, with the third seeing it 116-112.
“He’s a strong fighter,” Alvarez said to raucous cheers from his Las Vegas support crowd. “For me, I am happy to share the ring with him. He is a very good fighter. I’m glad to be involved in that kind of fight.”
Even with an injury to his left hand that he says will require surgery, the 32-year-old Alvarez thoroughly clobbered Golovkin, now 40 (42-2-1), in the first eight rounds, repeatedly testing to Triple G’s famous chin with forehand combinations and overhands. Golovkin recovered late, but ran out of time.
Golovkin started too slowly with no clear strategy to take the lead from Álvarez. Fighting at 168 pounds for the first time in his career, the Kazakh middleweight star still had moments of his best dynamic in the later rounds against a more tired Canelo, but they weren’t enough to make the fight against a younger opponent feel more comfortable in the supermarket. middleweight, where he reigns as the undisputed champion.
“Everyone knows this is a high-level fight, the best for boxing,” Golovkin said. “Look at his face. Look at my face. It is of a high level, because we trained well, and that shows that we put on a very good fight, of very good quality”.
The bitter rivals hugged and spoke affectionately after the final bell, perhaps signaling a thaw in their icy relationship.
Judges Steve Weisfeld and David Sutherland scored the first round with no action and four of the last five rounds for Golovkin, leading to those scores of 115-113 in a fight Alvarez largely dominated for long stretches. The Associated Press also favored Canelo, 117-111.
Golovkin landed just 23% of his 521 punches and only landed 10 body shots on Canelo, according to CompuBox. Alvarez wasn’t much more accurate, landing just 26% of his shots, but the Mexican star landed 85 power shots to Golovkin’s 46 and controlled the ring for long stretches.
With a clear victory to close out one of the liveliest rivalries in recent boxing history, Alvarez bounced back splendidly from the second loss of his career, a rather one-sided loss at light heavyweight to Dmitry Bivol last May.
“Thank you very much for your support,” Álvarez told the crowd. “I have been through very difficult things in my life. The only thing you can do is keep moving forward. I’ve been through tough times with my loss, but losses can show how you can be great, how you can come back and show humility.”
Golovkin again said that he will not retire after this fight, but the long-time middleweight champion suffered only his second loss, and the first that was decisive. The three blemishes on his career history are the result of his trilogy with Alvarez.
“I have a great plan,” Golovkin said of his future. “I have a lot of dates. Congratulations today, Canelo. Congratulations, fans. Remember, I’m still champion at 160. I’ll be back, guys. I’m still a champion.”
After their first two fights resulted in a draw and a narrow majority decision victory for Alvarez, the fighters finally met again four years later, again fighting near the Las Vegas Strip at T-Mobile Arena, the site of the three encounters in the trilogy.
Alvarez, 32, was a 5-1 favorite shortly before the opening bell, and he fought like one. Throwing many more punches and taking the initiative away from Golovkin, Canelo largely dominated the first half of the fight as Golovkin had a welt on his right temple.
Golovkin had no discernible game plan against Canelo’s bullying in the first eight rounds, instead soaking up punches from Alvarez and not throwing enough punches of his own. Golovkin eventually increased his work rate and progressed against a more tired Canelo in the later rounds, but it wasn’t enough.
Alvarez took a cut over his right eye in later rounds, but Golovkin’s increased activity and damage didn’t seem to affect him at all, even as his offensive effectiveness dwindled.
The fight was the long overdue final chapter in one of the most intriguing trilogies of this era. Alvarez and Golovkin first fought in 2017 and again in 2018, but those 24 rounds did not determine the superiority between two evenly matched fighters with nearly unmatched combinations of skill and striking power.
They fought to a split draw in their first meeting, but just about everyone without an official score thought Golovkin deserved the victory. His second meeting was closer, and while Alvarez won by majority decision, Golovkin again vehemently disagreed with the judges in the only loss of his career.
Golovkin had fought just four times in the four years since that fight, and this third fight was likely delayed by his vocal criticism of Alvarez for testing positive for a performance-enhancing substance before the second fight. Álvarez said the rivalry was now personal after years of bad blood and mutual criticism, while Golovkin insisted Álvarez was just another opponent.
That’s clearly not true: This matchup was special, and it may turn out to be the biggest rivalry of both fighters’ careers.
In the penultimate fight on the show, Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez went undefeated and retained his WBC super flyweight title with a tough unanimous decision win over Israel Gonzalez. Rodriguez (17-0, 11 KOs), 22, is a rising star, and he overcame a point deduction for a cheap shot to win a tactical matchup with an unorthodox opponent.
