Eddie Hearn can’t imagine a scenario where Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin go 12 rounds again.
The British promoter, who works with Alvarez and Golovkin, predicted during his most recent appearance on “The DAZN Boxing Show” that one of these driven rivals will conclude his trilogy with a knockout victory on September 17 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Vegas. Neither fighter has lost by knockout.
Álvarez won their 12-round rematch by majority decision in September 2018 at T-Mobile Arena, a year after their infamous 12-round split draw at the same venue.
“Everything I see of Gennadiy Golovkin looks like a man possessed,” Hearn told co-hosts Barak Bess and Akin Reyes during his weekly announcement on their show. “Right? At 168 pounds, I’m telling you now, the benefits to Gennadiy Golovkin of being up at 168, as opposed to shredding himself for the 15th year of his career at 160, he looks like an absolute beast. He comes with everything to beat Canelo next week. And Canelo better be ready. I know how hard Canelo has trained for this fight, because he’s coming off a loss and he really wants to win this fight and he wants to knock out Triple-G.”
Golovkin’s only loss is the aforementioned majority decision loss to Alvarez. However, the IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion is 40 years old and will make his debut at the super middleweight limit against Alvarez, who has won world titles in the 168 and 175-pound weight classes.
Mexico’s Alvarez (57-2-2, 39 KOs) lost his last fight, a decisive loss to undefeated Russian Dmitry Bivol in their 12-round light heavyweight championship bout on May 7 at T-Mobile Arena. Most punters still list Alvarez, who is eight years younger than Kazakhstan’s Golovkin, as at least a 4-1 favorite to beat Golovkin (42-1-1, 36 KOs) in his third fight, a DAZN Pay-Per-View main event. .
Hearn, however, anticipates another highly competitive fight between them. He also believes that their third fight will be more entertaining than each of their first two meetings.
“Next week in Vegas, you better get ready to see an all-out war between these two,” Hearn said. “The preparation will be epic. They will be there all week. But I’m telling you now, when the bell rings at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, these two won’t back down. They will go to absolute war in this trilogy. And this fight will not go 12 rounds. No way. No way this time. And you’re going to see the best of all three fights. Forget Bivol. forgetting of [Gilberto] Ramirez. All eyes on Las Vegas next week.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
