EPIC CONTEST
Pre-eminent pugilists of this era ready for iconic battle
THERE are slugfests which rouse the blood lust. There are games of catand-mouse which empty the hall. There are highly technical duels of rarefied skills which absorb the connoisseurs but leave the thrill-seeking voyeurs cold.
There are clashes of differing styles which collude in the making of fine fights.
There are mismatches so unbalanced that they threaten with grievous bodily harm the opponents hired for the purpose of being beaten. Or worse.
Occasionally, two men equipped with the full compendium of the prize-ring’s many talents engage in stupendous combat.
They elevate the hardest of all games to the pinnacle of a noble art. They do so with razor expertise. With thunderous concussive punching which each withstands with a jaw of stone and a heart of oak.
For such spectacles to scale perfection demands they should be a pair of the greatest fighters of their generation.
It is on that premise we have been lured to this cathedral city of boxing by Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin. It is on their promise that they have worked like slaves to turn back the years so as to re-present themselves in their trilogy fight here tomorrow as masters of their universe.
Each has reigned in recent years as the best pound-for-pound fighter on earth. Each insists his star has tilted on its axis by force of circumstance rather than being dimmed by the passage of time and so many brutal fights.
Ask Canelo, the flame-haired Mexican, who is the greatest pugilist on the planet today, and his answer is not Oleksandr Usyk, who has dislodged Anthony Joshua as the major shareholder in the heavyweight crown.
‘Me,’ says Alvarez. ‘I am the one who keeps taking on the big challenges. Still the undisputed super-middleweight champion.’ He says so even though he suffered a second loss of his career, against Russian lightheavyweight Dmitry Bivol, in his last fight. He blames that defeat on taking it for granted that he could handle the bigger man. He denies that the wear and tear of 61 fights has taken its toll even though he is still only 32.
‘I’m in my prime,’ he says. ‘I’m at my perfect weight now at 168 lbs. I feel fresh and strong. I’m excited by this fight, one of the most important in my career.’
Ask Golovkin, the Kazakh KO king if 40, which he has just turned, is a dangerous age for a fighter and he says: ‘I feel as young as ever. I live the perfect healthy life. I am ready to avenge the decisions Canelo was given over me in our first two fights.’ And no, he does not agree that he looked a little jaded in the most recent of the interim fights he won while waiting four years for Alvarez to return to their bitter fray.
Triple G believes he won their first fight, which was scored a draw, and probably their second, judged in favour of Canelo.
A feud has festered in the meantime. Says Alvarez: ‘He is not the nice person he pretends to be. I am motivated by the crap he has said about me. I am driven to punish him badly by knowing that when I beat him again it may well bring the end of his career.’
Says Golovkin: ‘I don’t know why this fight is so personal for him but I do want to knock him out for the sake of clean, fair boxing.’ Whether that is reference to Canelo failing a drugs test in the middle of this rivalry or to the controversial judging of the first two fights, he leaves unspoken.
What they do agree upon is that they are two of the pre-eminent fighters of this era. Both have overwhelming win records, packed with knockouts. Golovkin has scary one-hit power, while Alvarez inflicts deep hurt by cumulative punching. But such is the punch resistance of both that they have withstood countless bombs landed on each other in parts one and two of a series coming to a glorious climax now in the T-Mobile Arena.
That prospect is heightened by a potent concoction of raging will to crush an arch-enemy and anxiety about the repercussions of defeat. ‘They’ve given us 24 fantastic rounds already,’ says promoter Eddie Hearn. ‘This one can be even more amazing. Defeat could be the end for Gennady, or leave Canelo outside the world’s top 10. Victory would enshrine the legacy of either.’
Ah, that word legacy. Alvarez uses it when he says he ‘must win for myself, for my country on this Mexican Independence weekend, for my many fans coming to Vegas, for the millions watching in the pueblos back home.’
Golovkin uses it when he talks of ‘repairing the hurt of those decisions which scarred my perfect record even though I believe I’m undefeated.’
The fires of pride are stoked to a furnace. Which of them is in the greater danger of being burned? The casino sports books on the Strip are in no doubt, with Alvarez their odds-on-favourite.
Yet Golovkin, who has not fought in his native Kazakhstan for 12 years, is so accustomed to campaigning abroad that he was unaffected by the cacophonous support for Canelo at the first two fights in this very building.
Triple G ponders whether he needs a knockout to win. Canelo would prefer ‘to put an end to this beyond all doubt by stopping him inside the 12 rounds.’
Most likely it will go to a decision. Hopefully one beyond dispute. Neither Las Vegas nor boxing can afford yet another night of questionable judging in a fight of this magnitude.
The eight-year age gap should give Canelo the edge in another memorably close fight but victory for him is not the foregone conclusion many here believe.
And whoever prevails must be the rightful and deserving winner of this fight for the ages, however narrowly. All those involved in this potential epic and the very sport itself deserve nothing less. Canelo and GGG included.