Barry McGuigan
Vegas superfight between two great champions is on a knife edge
A MONTH ago in a poll for a boxing magazine I tipped Gennady Golovkin to beat Saul Alvarez. I’m sticking with that view but admit I’m a little nervous.
I think it’s going to be perilously close. The more I process it, the more I think Canelo could just nick it.
It’s that kind of fight – a face-off between two great champions that takes us back to those unbelievable encounters in the 1980s when Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns and Roberto Duran faced off against one another and no one knew how it would end.
What we do know is that neither is going to run away with it.
Golovkin has not been at his best in his last couple of fights against Kell Brook and Daniel Jacobs. He is 35 and there are signs of wear and tear and the timing is a split second off.
But he has had a decent rest since the Jacobs bout six months ago and I expect he will be better and punch harder in the heat of this kind of battle.
Canelo, eight years Triple G’s junior, is approaching his peak. He won every round against Julio Cesar Chavez Jnr, outclassed Liam Smith and took out Amir Khan with a devastating right.
He has been brilliantly schooled in the Mexican fashion by the Reynoso brothers. He’s never going to be a mover like Leonard or Floyd Mayweather but his technique is perfect.
Though he looks like an aggressive, attacking fighter he doesn’t take risks. Everything is brilliantly calculated and he doesn’t make many mistakes. He is exceptional in the pocket where the shots are flying over your head.
And when he lands he has ferocious power. But he is up against one of the most robust chins in the game. Three years ago in New York, Daniel Geale hit Golovkin flat out with a right hand a split second before Golovkin landed flush. Geale went down like a sack of spuds, Golovkin never budged.
But no man is bulletproof. Golovkin has always been prepared to take a few but recently impatience has seen him try to walk through rivals.
This is one of the tensions in this fight. Can he do that against Canelo and survive? He has never been hurt but there is a first time for everything.
On the positive side, arguably no one in the middleweight division has hit as relentlessly hard as this fellow, as a record of 33 KOs in 37 indicates. Golovkin doesn’t throw punches in the conventional manner, he throws long, sweeping, lethal hooks.
You are taught as a kid to punch palm upwards when you hit to the body. Golovkin turns his hands to the floor on impact. He pulverises with that punch. Ask Matthew Macklin.
Poor Marco Antonio Rubio hardly knew where he was when Golovkin hit him with a left hook to the head, his hand chopping down from above the shoulder. It was an incredible shot that totally immobilised him.
The way to beat a puncher is to keep him moving, to stop him planting those feet and getting set. Jacobs did that brilliantly. He was huge. He failed to make the weight and at an estimated 180 pounds on the night was maybe a stone heavier than Golovkin.
In the end that counted against him and he was holding on in the 12th. But he showed Canelo how to he can win, by holding the centre of the ring, stepping left and right and throwing the jab. It’s on a knife edge. I’m saying Golovkin while holding my breath.
■ Follow Barry @ClonesCyclone MARC AUSTIN insists he’ll keep seeking home comforts if he can continue to impress on foreign soil.
The triathlete is part of a four-strong British squad – including past winner Jonny Brownlee – at today’s World Grand Final in Rotterdam.
With the overall title set to go to Mario Mola if the Spaniard ends up top five, Austin still has an outside chance of sealing a Commonwealth Games spot.
But the Scot has no regrets about his decision to stay in Stirling and coach himself this season.
Austin, 23, said: “It costs a fair bit of money to have a full-time coach overseas and then you’re away from home for long spells.
“It’s good at times to get away for warm weather or altitude but here you can keep things simple.”
Jess Learmonth heads the British women with Flora Duffy of Bermuda favourite to defend her world title.
Meanwhile Scottish guide Hazel MacLeod linked up with Melissa Reid yesterday to take world paratriathlon bronze in the PTVI category.