By Dan Ambrose: Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin meet for their highly anticipated trilogy fight a week from now at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on September 17 on DAZN PPV.
Golovkin will need to up his game not to lose this fight because Canelo is fighting at a higher level right now and has been busier.
Despite having won the last fight against GGG in 2018, Canelo comes into the third match against Golovkin with a lot of bad blood.
Canelo still holds a grudge for things Golovkin said about him in the past after he tested positive for the banned substance clenbuterol and received a six-month suspension.
On the undercard, WBC super flyweight champion Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez defends against Israel Gonzalez in the main support bout. Also, Gabriel Rosado faces Ali Akhmedov.
“Obviously Canelo was really great because it was an amazing opportunity,” welterweight prospect Vlad ‘Super Bad’ Panin told Little Giant Boxing of his bout with Canelo Alvarez.
“I was able to learn a lot from the ten minutes we trained. They were four minute rounds. Oh man, those four-minute rounds feel like forever when you’re with him,” Panin said.
“He doesn’t have to do much, but his knowledge and positioning and the placement of his shot. Even how he can put you in certain positions without even hitting. You can feel the pressure of what he could do.
“He’s a great guy. I talked to him and said, ‘When you have me here, what do I do?’ He said: ‘It’s easy; just do this.’ I’m like, ‘Man, he’s crazy. He is so experienced and polished in his experience. You learn a lot being in the ring with guys like that.
“Just his composure, how calm he is and his instinct of, ‘You know, now I’m boxing, now I’m pressing.’ I see that with the top guys, Terence Crawford, Errol Spence, Lomachenko and Canelo.
“It can be a really slow pace, but it’s like when you’re ready to go, then they take advantage of it and finish the fight just like that.
“I’m starting to get that awareness now of being a finisher, and you know when a guy is ready to go, ‘Now I can pick it up, and now we set the pace.’ Just being around guys like that,” Panin said of Canelo.
