Canelo vs. GGG 3 Aftermath: Father Time Is Undefeated
While it didn’t need to happen, Canelo needed a fight like we saw from the Mexican sensation last night. Live on DAZN pay per view, Canelo dismantled Gennadiy Golovkin over the course of 12 rounds until GGG roared back in the back quarter of the fight. Canelo ultimately got the decision in a rather one-sided fight and bounced back from his loss to Dmitry Bivol with authority. So today we are breaking down the fight with the newest edition of Aftermath for Canelo vs. GGG 3! Let’s begin.
Canelo vs. GGG 3 Takeaway: Bam needs depth
Before we get to the meat and potatoes of the article, I want to take a second to talk about Jesse Rodriguez. Bam is one of the hottest prospects in the game. He has footwork and power. He took on a tough Israel Gonzalez who Chocolatito couldn’t put away. Bam was to come in here and make a point by putting Gonzalez away.
Bam showed great footwork and head movement as he always does. The problem with the young Mexican flyweight is his depth. Going through the fight it was clear that Jesse Rodriguez was in control the entire time. Where my gripe comes in was the lack of depth coming from Bam. Rodriguez either came in and looked to dip and fire off a power shot or he would look for a power shot on the pivot from the angle he created. By the time the sixth round came around, Gonzalez knew what was coming.
There was some breakdown of Gonzalez to the body but not enough of consequence. In fact, Gonzalez did most of the body punching himself. In the future, I would like to see more feints, level changes, and variety from Bam who is supremely talented and only 22 years old. He’s young and he will assuredly ghttps://twitter.com/MacMallyMMA/status/1571348560398131200?s=20&t=iKn6AA_2jxNPKxwImVkAeQrow from this.
GGG: One of the “G’s” is for geriatric
Okay, I stole the headline from MacMally on Twitter. Shoutout.
https://twitter.com/MacMallyMMA/status/1571348560398131200?s=20&t=iKn6AA_2jxNPKxwImVkAeQ
In all honesty, Golovkin looked old. Very old. The move up to super middleweight did him no favors as the added weight made him look old as well. All night, GGG struggled with the speed, youth, and power of Canelo. His jab looked slower. His output was lower. It was just an ugly look overall for the Kazak World Champion.
But near the end of round nine, Golovkin catches Canelo and the Mexican backs up. He had hurt Alvarez despite the announcers saying he was playing opossum. Canelo was not and it was apparent from his backwards step and high guard. It was at this moment that GGG came alive and started bringing the fight to his long time rival. Knowing he was down, GGG went for broke and stole some rounds from Canelo Alvarez.
While I did make a fuss about GGG’s age in the Beforemath issue for this fight, I am inclined to believe that it was the youthfulness of Canelo that did in GGG, not his age. While age had something to do with it, Canelo was at his absolute zenith last night and shut down a lot of GGG’s offense with offense and speed of his own.
GGG didn’t do anything to stop this. According to Compubox, Canelo outlanded GGG to the body by a 37 to 10 margin. I said in Beforemath that slowing Canelo down with body work was paramount to the success of Golovkin and he didn’t execute that. Golovkin did fight boring for the first part of the fight and that actually did him no favors as Canelo got off shot after shot.
GGG is still a champion and has a future at middleweight. There is still Jermall Charlo to fight who is the WBC World Middleweight Champion and maybe Demetrius Andrade will change his mind about chasing Canelo. I don’t expect GGG to fight Janibek Alimkhanuly as the two are mutual Kazakh fighters. But GGG could pave the way for Janibek to become undisputed one day after becoming undisputed himself.
Canelo: Is cardio an issue?
Canelo looked fantastic last night. After his loss to Bivol, many disrespected the top boxer in the world. After that loss he fell from first to fifth in the pound for pound rankings after fighting a light heavyweight. Canelo fought Floyd Mayweather at 154 and he went up to 175. Regardless, GGG was the fight he took, and it was seemingly no breaks for Canelo. He dominated from almost start to finish and Canelo now moves on to face whatever may be next be it Benavidez, Dirrell, or Andrade.
Canelo was a master in the ring versus GGG. He controlled the fight and (almost) didn’t take a step back. What made Canelo so successful was his speed which he missed against Bivol. I don’t believe super middleweight is his weight class to be at, much like Lomachenko, but he continues to fight up because he’s just that damn good.
Like he’s done against Callum Smith, Bivol, and more, Canelo punched the arm of GGG all night making his opponent’s life miserable. Punching the arm really is a painful thing and while it may not score it absolutely changes the flow of the fight. Canelo systematically broke down GGG with the arm shots, huge shots up top and body work that really hurt the Kazakh fighter all night.
My real concern with Canelo is his cardio. He faded in the last quarter of the fight and let GGG back into the fight. He as a bit slower and even got caught and hurt like we talked about earlier. Should a fighter come and start the body work earlier, Canelo could run into someone who might beat him that isn’t a light heavyweight. He’s seemingly aware of this as he works the body early on to get a jump on his opponent’s gas tank and start wearing that down early in the fight. But it is his first fight back at 168 and GGG is a tough guy. Canelo put a lot of power into his shots early in the fight and that could be part of the problem there. We’ve seen him patient against Billy Joe Saunders and Sergiy Kovalev in the past. So maybe he was just there for a show. If so, it was a show that the fans got.
View this post on Instagram
**********
In addition to covering boxing for My MMA News, Blaine Henry, the author, also analyzes fights from all combat sports across the globe.
Blaine Henry can be found on Twitter, on his Substack, and Discord.
