By: Sean Crose
“It’s hard to deny that Golovkin no longer seems to be at his best in the ring.”
The above words were not written after last weekend’s third Canelo Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin fight. They were written by me in 2019, after Golovkin had a less than stellar fight against Sergiy Derevyanchenko. After being completely dominated by Canelo on Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, it finally became clear to everyone that the long-standing rumors were true, that Golovkin, the man who was once the most feared participant In all of professional boxing, the guy who went by the name “Triple G” was no longer the fighter he once was.
Not only was Canelo the faster and stronger of the two men on Saturday, but Golovkin seemed genuinely hesitant to participate. That was a look that no one had ever seen on the Kazakh lion before. However, it wasn’t the look of someone who was afraid, it was the look of a man whose body could no longer function as his mind wanted. It was the look many boxing fans have seen time and time again on the faces of seemingly countless ring veterans. While it was nice to see Canelo get the deserved and dominating win he craved last weekend – before he went all-in on his old foe Golovkin – it’s always a bit sad to see a great fighter fall from the top.
The knockdown, however, may well have been a long time coming for Golovkin. “Some might argue,” I wrote in 2019, “that Golovkin’s hard-won, less-than-impressive victory over (Daniel) Jacobs that long-ago winter night was the first indication that the Kazakh warrior was showing signs. of decline”. Sure enough, Jacobs gave Golovkin all kinds of trouble in his 2017 outing. I and a few others in the press box that night really felt that Jacobs had done enough to win. The judges saw otherwise, but Golovkin clearly didn’t do what fans were used to doing on that cold March night: He didn’t wipe the floor with his opponent.
A lot of it had to do with Jacobs, of course, himself a world-class fighter willing to rise to the occasion. Still, it was hard to shake the feeling that the best days of the great Triple G were behind us. That was six months before the first fight with Canelo. Golovkin was 34 at the time, two years older than Canelo when he slipped through the ropes Saturday night in Las Vegas. The fact that Golovkin was able to perform at the level he did in Saturday’s rubber match, at the age of forty, against none other than Canelo, is actually quite remarkable.
