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LAS VEGAS – And that’s it. An in-ring embrace between rivals Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin ended a tumultuous 36-round rivalry.
September 17, 2022 marked the end of an interesting trilogy between the two rivals.
Undisputed super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez dominated and outpointed Gennadiy Golovkin in 12 one-sided rounds before a sold-out, partisan crowd at T-Mobile Arena.
It was unfortunate that the scorecards (115-113, 115-113 and 116-112) did not reflect at all how the fight played out. The fight was boring, Golovkin looked a lot like a fighter past his prime, where he sometimes pulled the trigger during exchanges, and Alvarez revealed in the post-fight press conference that he would likely need hand surgery due to an injury.
Although Alvarez officially won two of the three fights, naysayers will point out that Golovkin did enough to win the previous two fights.
Tonight’s fight and result put an end to a trilogy that fell short of other famous trilogies such as Israel Vazquez-Rafael Marquez, Arturo Gatti-Mickey Ward, just to name a few. Instead, the Alvarez-Golovin trilogy is best known for the scorecards in the first two fights.
In their first fight, which took place in September 2017, Álvarez and Golovkin fought to a split decision draw. Much of the criticism fell on the shoulders of judge Adelaide Byrd, who had the infamous 118-110 scorecard for Alvarez. But as boxing writer Gayle Lynn Falkenthal pointed out, why blame Byrd alone when judge Don Trella produced a 114-114 scorecard? Even if Byrd had that ridiculous scorecard, if Trella had scored a round for Golovkin instead of Alvarez, Golovkin would have won a split decision.
A year later, in the highly anticipated rematch, the last half of the fight produced fireworks between both fighters, with Álvarez winning by majority decision. The fight was very close. A scorecard of 115-113 for either fighter, coupled with the scorecard of 114-114, reflected how competitive and close the fight was.
The Alvarez-Golovkin fight could and should have been fought right away in May 2019. Instead, Alvarez made it very clear that he did not want the third fight with Golovkin. Instead, he fought Daniel Jacobs in a middleweight unification fight.
Other opportunities could have led to the third fight taking place, but the COVID-19 pandemic hit, shutting down major cards for several weeks. As fight cards began, Alvarez sued Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions, along with DAZN. Álvarez would fight again on the Matchroom Boxing and Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) cards.
Despite having moved up in weight and remains the current top middleweight in the sport, with two world title belts, Golovkin is down in his career. At 40, his reflexes are no longer what they were before. Even in defeat, Golovkin still owns two middleweight world title belts.
According to BoxingScene’s Keith Idec, Golovkin’s purse for the third fight against Alvarez, including ticket sales and pay-per-view, could exceed $40 million. There is no need for him to fight again. He has until the end of this week (September 23) to notify the WBA if he will actually defend his Super world title against Erislandy, the ‘Regular’ titleholder. If Golovkin decides to vacate the WBA title, Lara would be elevated to ‘Super’ world title.
As for Alvarez, the plan was to face WBA light heavyweight world champion Dmitry Bivol in a rematch of their May 7 clash, which Bivol won by unanimous decision. That will depend on whether Bivol can get past mandatory challenger Gilberto Ramirez of Mexico on November 5. That will also depend on how quickly Alvarez can recover from surgery on his injured hand.
Álvarez and Golovkin brought out the best in each other. Regardless of who they will face in the future, how many more world titles they will win, or when they will finally hang up the gloves for good, they will always be aligned with each other, but not for the reasons people think. Seeing them recognize each other after the fight showed the respect they have for each other despite the insults that are thrown at press conferences, commercials and social media.
His second fight was the best of the trilogy and he showed off his ‘A’ game in a spirited effort that could have gone either way.
A lousy scorecard in the first fight, a long wait between the second and third fights, and boxing politics (what else is new) prevented this trilogy from being memorable in the ring and not out of it.
Francisco A. Salazar has written for BoxingScene since September 2012 and has covered boxing in Southern California and abroad since 2000. Francisco also covers boxing for the Ventura County, California, Star newspaper. He can be reached via email at [email protected] or on Twitter at FSalazarBoxing.
