Welcome to the Fight Freaks Unite recap podcast coming off a great weekend that saw one of the biggest fights of the year take center stage: the long-awaited third bout between Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin for the undisputed heavyweight title. Canelo’s super middleweight.
Here’s what we discussed in this episode (in order):
A summary of my Sunday drive home with a story that had been told.
We get into all things Canelo-GGG III: the fight, the score, thoughts on both fighters’ performances, what could be in their immediate future, and how deep Golovkin’s decline is and is Alvarez still in your best moment?
Listen to the podcast by clicking play below,
Four-division champion Alvarez (58-2-2, 39 KOs), 32, of Mexico, earned a unanimous decision sealing a fine fifth round when he landed a hard right hand with about 20 seconds remaining with Golovkin doing nothing. instead.
With little success in the sixth round, the crowd began to boo as the clock ticked down. Alvarez continued to control the fight in the seventh and landed an overhand right hand to the side of Golovkin’s head that got the crowd pumping.
Finally, in the ninth round, Golovkin (42-2-1, 37 KOs), a Kazakhstan native fighting out of Santa Monica, California, went on the offensive and was successful. He landed a right hand to the head and landed some more solid punches that backed up Alvarez. Alvarez came back in the closing seconds with a combination to the lead, but GGG did enough to win the round.
There was some good two-way action in the 10th round, but it was relative to the overall lack of action in the fight, but Golovkin was closing better than he started.
“I was not surprised. I know him,” Alvarez said of Golovkin’s finish. “He is a strong fighter. For me, I’m happy to share the ring with him. He is a very good fighter. I’m glad to be involved in that kind of fight.” On his relative success in the later rounds, Golovkin said it was due to “his strategy. Second half, I don’t feel bad. It’s a good fight.”
According to CompuBox stats, Alvarez landed 130 of 487 punches (27 percent) and Golovkin landed 120 of 521 (23 percent). Álvarez outpointed Golovkin in every round except the ninth, 10th and 11th.
By comparison, in their second fight Golovkin was 234 of 879 and Alvarez was 202 of 622 and in the first fight Golovkin was 120 of 21 and Alvarez was 130 of 487.
Canelo retains his WBC/WBA/IBF and WBO world titles.
Here’s a discussion of junior bantamweight champion Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez’s hard-fought defense against Israel Gonzalez and what looks like next. Bam certainly has a bright future.
We also give post-fight thoughts on Ali Akhmedov’s shutout of Gabriel Rosado, Austin “Ammo” Williams’ very solid victory over Kieron Conway, Diego Pacheco’s tremendous KO of Enrique Collazo and Marc Castro’s impressive destruction of Kevin Montiel. Mendoza.
We ended up telling me my story of going to the airport on Sunday with a taxi driver who is a huge fan and recognized me but didn’t want to talk about Canelo-GGG III. I just wanted to talk about the Errol Spence Jr.-Terence Crawford perspective.
