ALVAREZ, GGG ARE TIRED OF WAITING
Anticipation for fight reaching a fever pitch
No sport does anticipation like boxing, and somehow the wait gets worse the closer a big fight gets. For Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Gennady Gennadyevich Golovkin, it started to come to a head Friday afternoon on a stage inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, where they stood eye to eye, shirts off, ready for combat, forced to refrain from trying to break each other’s noses, ribs and spirits by nothing more than rules and contracts.
Alvarez played it up for the crowd of more than 9,000, the majority of whom had come to see him fulfill his promise as the most important Mexican fighter in a generation.
GGG, meanwhile, stared straight ahead, cold and blank.
Each hit the middleweight limit, 160 pounds, exactly on the mark, clearing the final hurdle to one of the more anticipated fights in memory.
Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor was a farce. A retired 40-year-old champion dusting off the gloves to face a loudmouth who had excelled in a different combat sport but had never boxed professionally before.
The Andre Ward vs. Sergey Kovalev fights lacked star power. Ward is a terrific fighter, and Kovalev represented his most stern test, but had casual fans heard of either one? And
does anyone know what the paradox of a division “light heavyweight” even means?
Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao was years too late, even for fans who remember the interminable wait for Sugar Ray Leonard to finally face Marvelous Marvin Hagler.
But Canelo-GGG has it all. Alvarez, called “Canelo” in a play on the Spanish word for "cinnamon" because of his red hair, has been boxing professionally since he was a teen. His boss, hall of famer and Golden Boy Promotions head, Oscar De La Hoya, wishes his Mexican protégé would speak English to reach a wider fan base. But the 27year-old Alvarez, of Guadalajara, Jalisco, steadfastly speaks Spanish in interviews, regardless of the forum.
It hasn’t seemed to hold him back. He’s got beer commercials with Sylvester Stallone, billboards across the Southwest and recognition as the youngest main attraction in a pay-per-view fight that generated more than one million buys.
He’s the lineal middleweight champ, meaning he won the title from the fighter who beat the fighter who beat the champion who traces his lineage through the history of the division, including all-timers Bernard Hopkins, Hagler, Carlos Monzon, Ray Robinson, Jake LaMotta and Stanley Ketchel.
But in a twist that only boxing can offer, Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs) holds none of the belts issued by the sport’s four main sanctioning organizations, the IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO, at middleweight.
Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs), meanwhile, holds three of those title straps and has been recognized as the top fighter in one of the sport’s more important division for years.
To get a sense of how dominant he’s been, consider his nine-year, 23-fight knockout streak. And then consider that when he defeated Danny Jacobs, one of the top fighters in the sport, in a unanimous decision observers and fans began to wonder whether the 35-year-old Golovkin was slowing with age.
The boxing world is ready for this. The winner will be the unquestioned middleweight champ and have an argument as the top pound-for-pound fighter in the sport.
But more importantly the fighters are ready, too.
After the weigh-in, Alvarez was asked how he would make the Mexican people proud on that nation’s independence day weekend.
“I’m going to give them a great fight,” he said through an interpreter.
For Golovkin, who also goes by the nickname “Big Drama Show,” it was a bit sharper.
He was asked what he thought of Alvarez saying, “he may have the belts, but he’s a fake champion.”
GGG responded, simply: “See you tomorrow.”
There's nothing left to do but wait.