Everything in the Kitchen Sink: How Canelo Alvarez Defeated Gennady Golovkin

Even though the online buzz for Canelo-GGG2 seemed subdued prior to the event, the consensus seems to be that the rematch surpassed the first fight. How hypocritical! Without even recognizing it, people’s enjoyment was tied down to Canelo’s performance, because Golovkin left much to be desired.

Unless one is completely callous, a bit of sympathy must be felt for Gennady Golovkin (38-1-1, 34 KO). For he was hoodwinked and played by the entire middleweight division, not just Canelo Alvarez (50-1-2, 34 KO). But as far as Alvarez is concerned, Golovkin abandoned an historic accomplishment of becoming an undisputed champion to chase a money fight with Canelo – in which he was robbed the first time – to being stripped of one of his titles while his rematch loomed – because the person he actually beat got caught with drugs in his system – to then be fairly defeated in a rematch in which he himself failed to live up to his own demands and expectations of truly putting on a street fight, thus sending the impression that his destructor image was fraudulent, and of course losing the rest of his titles in the process. Man was Golovkin taken to the cleaners!

But let us not lose sight of the fact that this is how it is supposed to be. Canelo Alvarez is in his prime; Golovkin is not.

People might be inclined to believe in this machismo of “Mexican style” as to why Alvarez fought 99.9% of the fight moving forward and walking down Golovkin. The reason is that his promotor, Oscar de la Hoya, has been on record saying that Golovkin cannot fight going backwards. But I do not think that explains Alvarez’s effectiveness in moving forward. For most boxers get most of their conditioning from jogging and sparring. In both cases, especially for Golovkin, that form of conditioning involves moving forward, which requires a specific usage of the musculature. Moving backwards is not normal, and hence even well conditioned athletes are not conditioned nor acclimated to having to move backwards. Moving forward at a comfortable pace – since Golovkin does not have the quickest feet – aided Alvarez in his conservation of energy, while at the same time causing Golovkin to expend more. Thus, in both fights, the guy who moved forward conserved the most energy and the guy moving backwards had to work harder, not only because he was less conditioned to it, but also because moving backwards is truly a less efficient form of locomotion.

(For completeness, it should be added that Alvarez’s hooks to the body gradually wore Golovkin down, stymying his aggression. Secondly, Golovkin’s lack of effectiveness in fighting while going backwards had to do with his lack of accuracy, which can be credited both to his lack of hand speed and Alvarez’s good reflexes.)

Between the two, Alvarez had better reflexes and hand speed than Golovkin, and thus could easily outbox him. The two issues with Alvarez were always his punch resistance and work rate. He clearly lost to Golovkin the first time because of his poor work rate – Golovkin was inaccurate, but not so much so that Canelo could justify fighting 30 seconds out of 3 minutes.

Getting back to our previous point, by moving forward Canelo was able to conserve energy and fight for an entire three minutes. That alone justified giving rounds to Canelo, as he was far more accurate and effective with his punches than was Golovkin.

Why was Golovkin so susceptible to being backed up? Once again the kitchen sink applies. Primarily, throwing to the head with straight punches, Golovkin needed space. But also, Golovkin had become accustomed to throwing straight punches while moving forward – so maybe muscle memory. But then again, maybe at 36 years of age, with a kid, a wife, Golovkin just lacks the fighting spirit. Golovkin was sedated as Canelo got in his face at the weigh-in. On a couple of occasions during the fight, Golovkin friendly patted Canelo on the small of his back during clinches. One must have the right temperament to be a forward aggressor, and so his displays of friendship during the bout were not appropriate and showed something was lacking psychologically.

Lastly, credit must be given to Canelo Alvarez for his deliberate influence of the scoring. From the first round, Canelo never let Golovkin have a string of unanswered punches. In the first round, Canelo did not have Golovkin measured enough to counter with his power, so he matched Golovkin’s jab with his own. From a scoring perspective, it was easy to tell when Golovkin landed something meaningful because Canelo would match it – but that was only when Canelo was not dictating with his own unanswered punches. It does not matter what CompuBox claimed the punch stats were, Canelo sold the impression that he was always in control.

Rounds 1 – 2

These rounds were won easily by Canelo. Golovkin only landed a jab, which Canelo matched, but Canelo was also landing lead left hooks which were very noticeable. Not much seen from Canelo’s right hand at this point. Strategically, this allowed Canelo to better protect himself from Golovkin’s left hooks to the head and body.

Round 3

First solid round for Golovkin, although it could have been scored either way. Golovkin was noticeable bouncing Canelo’s head back with the jab and caught Canelo with a straight right hand at one minute left.

Round 4

This was a worrisome round for Canelo and what Golovkin should have wanted: a trading of blows in the center of the ring that should have favored Golovkin because he was the harder puncher, and because Canelo needed to pace himself due to his conditioning problems. The two most meaningful punches landed were a right uppercut by Golovkin in the second minute and a left hook to the body landed by Canelo with twenty seconds left.

Round 5 – 7

I thought Canelo won each of these rounds, although round seven was a swing round. Canelo had a string of unanswered punches at the end of the sixth round. The most meaningful punch for Golovkin was an uppercut he landed at the end of round seven. However, at the end of that round Golovkin’s trainer directly stated that he was losing the fight. For the most part, Canelo worked Golovkin’s body, made Golovkin miss when he threw to the head, slowly chipped away at Golovkin.

Round 8

Golovkin showed signs of mentally quitting, dropping both hands in a defeatist manner after missing with head shots.

Round 9

Both guys began to get sloppy from fatigue. This was a swing round that could have gone either way, but Canelo could have stolen the round with some unanswered punches in the closing stretch.

Round 10

A fight-ending right hook seem to glaze Canelo on the side of his face. I say that it was glazing because there was no audible impact despite Canelo’s head turning as if he had been hit. At 1:30 into the round, Canelo appeared hurt by a right hand landed by Golovkin. However, when he got to the corner, Canelo answered no when he was asked if he was hurt by the punch. The slow motion replay showed that the punch landed around the cheekbone area, rather than the chin, hence why Canelo absorbed it. This was one of a few very clear rounds that Golovkin won.

Round 11

Golovkin landed the hardest punch of the round with a right hand at 1:45 left, but the round was competitive, and again Canelo may have stolen the round with unanswered punches at the end.

Round 12

This round was fought primarily in close quarters. Very competitive, but again Canelo finished the round with unanswered punches.

The scorecards ended up being 114-114 and 115-113 x2 in favor of Canelo Alvarez by majority decision. An indication of Golovkin’s lack of effective power was that Steve Weisfeld – whom I have criticized as always giving rounds to power punchers – scored the fight in favor of Canelo Alvarez.

Golovkin does not have the right attitude for boxing. He claimed he wanted a street-fight, but showed gestures of friendliness in the ring as mentioned in the introduction. When pressed by a guy moving forward, he mentally yielded by backing up to avoid confrontation. He did not put a body on Canelo to back him up. Had he traded left hooks to the body on the inside, it would have favored Golovkin. Fighting in close would have also neutralized Canelo’s hand speed and reflexes.

Gennady Golovkin has converted to peace and Buddhism and shall never be the same.