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Mexico’s Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez will face Kazakhstan’s Gennady ‘Triple G’ Golovkin for the unified boxing middleweight titles on September 16th, 2017 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The superfight has been billed as ‘Supremacy’ as the winner will walk away with all but two of the major middleweight belts available. Golovkin is the current unified WBA (Super), WBC, IBF and IBO middleweight champion, while Alvarez is both the Ring and lineal middleweight title holder.
After the big McGregor vs. Mayweather fight stole the show in August, all eyes will be on this bout come September.
Mexican Superstar
Alvarez is Mexico’s biggest boxing superstar and the flagship fighter of Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions. The 27-year old Guadalajara native sports an impressive record of 49-1-1 with 34 knockouts, with his only loss coming at the hands of Floyd Mayweather Jr. Alvarez is a two-division champion, having held the 154-pound title twice.
Alvarez used to be known as the catchweight king after having fought a series of bouts at a catchweight of 155 pounds. The weight was even dubbed as ‘canelo-weight’ in reference to the obvious. But after Alvarez fought Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. at a catchweight of 165 pounds at this year’s Cinco de Mayo Weekend, he agreed to fight Golovkin at the middleweight limit of 160.
Kazakh Destroyer
Golovkin is the Kazakh destroyer also known as the god of war. Triple G is unbeaten in 37 bouts and has 33 knockouts. His 89.8% knockout rate is the highest in middleweight championship history. Golovkin knocked out an impressive 23 straight opponents from 2008-2017 to gain the reputation as one of the sport’s most feared punchers. He had been eyeing Alvarez for two years now and with Canelo finally doing away with the catchweight, the true super fight is finally happening.
Odds and Prediction
This one could go either way, really, and could be a tough spot to make money betting on boxing. Golovkin is currently the slight favorite at -170 and Canelo the underdog at +150.
Golovkin has never been knocked down either in the amateurs or in the pros. But while he has an iron chin, he is not hard to hit. Golovkin loves to bait his opponents by taking clean punches from his opponents in order to land his haymakers. No problem there, because as we said, his jaw is granite.
But against an excellent counter puncher like Canelo Alvarez who can work the body as well as the head, Golovkin’s 35-year old body could wear out. And even if it doesn’t, Alvarez will feast on him with a lot of scoring punches. Canelo also has better movement and defense to avoid Golovkin’s big shots.
This is going to be a real super fight, far better than Mayweather-Pacquiao. It will be Golovkin’s power versus Canelo’s finesse. Unless Golovkin shows better defense, Alvarez should score all night on him. GGG will find it hard to knock out a moving boxer like Canelo. Both will have their share of highlights in this bout but in the end, the better boxer should win.
We’re picking Canelo Alvarez to come out victorious via decision. It could be close, though.
