Mexican superstar Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (57-2-2, 39 KOs) will be taking his upcoming assignment more serious than the last, according to Gennadiy Golovkin (42-1-1, 37 KOs).
Canelo and Golovkin will clash for a third time on September 17 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Their prior two encounters took place at the same venue, with the first bout ending in a controversial twelve round split draw in 2017, and then Canelo winning a close twelve round majority decision in the 2018 rematch.
Golovkin believes Canelo is under a lot of pressure, because in his last fight he suffered his first defeat since 2013. Canelo moved up to 175 and was outboxed over twelve rounds by WBA world champion Dmitry Bivol.
The trilogy with GGG takes place at 168-pounds, where Canelo is the undisputed world champion. Their prior meetings took place at middleweight, where Golovkin is currently the WBA, IBF, IBO world champion.
Canelo is a tremendous favorite to win the third fight, but Golovkin expects his foe to be more focused than ever. He feels Canelo overlooked Bivol.
“I’m sure he’s going to take it more seriously than when he faced Bivol. Against Bivol he was not taking it very seriously,” said Golovkin to The Los Angeles Times.
In the weeks leading up to the fight, there has been a lot of trash talking – with Canelo throwing plenty of verbal jabs in Golovkin’s direction.
Golovkin explains that he’s paid very little attention to Canelo’s taunts.
“To be honest, I wasn’t paying much attention, I wasn’t listening,” Golovkin said. “With his attitude he proved to be like someone of a lower level… he probably showed his true face. I was disappointed because he hasn’t grown as a professional athlete.”
Source: BoxingScene