The best and biggest theoretical boxing match of the post-MayPac era is Gennady “GGG” Golovkin vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. If both win their fall fights, Canelo-GGG in 2016 would be massive. And from the financial and sporting perspectives, it would be right on time. It certainly wouldn’t be five years too late.
It would, however, be five years after it already happened.
Canelo was a 20-year-old rising star and Golovkin a name whispered in the darkest corners of #boxinghead freakdom when veteran boxing writer Doug Fischer got the call from Golovkin’s trainer, Abel Sanchez, inviting him to watch a sparring session. Fischer had heard about “Abel’s Russian guy,”
[sup]1[/sup] who had supposedly manhandled Alfredo Angulo and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in the gym. The invite came in May 2011. “Doug, do you want to come up and watch Golovkin spar?” he recalled Sanchez asking.
“Who’s he going to be sparring with?”
Sanchez answered, “You’ll love this: Canelo Alvarez.”
Alvarez was preparing for a June 18 bout with Ryan Rhodes, Golovkin for a June 17 fight against Kassim Ouma, and the plan called for them to spar six four-minute rounds. So for 24 minutes, Fischer and a handful of other lucky spectators got a free look at a fight that could be worth eight figures to both boxers a half-decade later.
“Toward the end of the second round, Golovkin nailed Alvarez with a short hook and it took his legs out from under him,” Fischer recalled. “He did the Bojangles for just a second there. Alvarez backed off. He got on his bicycle, he just worked a nice straight jab to try to keep Golovkin off him, the bell rang, and he didn’t go back to his corner. He kind of did some squat things and then he put one of his legs on the top rope and did a ballet stretch, and he looked pissed. He looked pissed that he got caught. Maybe he was pissed that there was a witness.”
Alvarez recovered admirably, Fischer said, and for four more rounds they waged a battle whose legend grows
[sup]2[/sup] with each passing year. It was all but assured in 2011 that Canelo would be one of boxing’s next big things. But Golovkin? A fighter from Kazakhstan who spoke no English, who had never fought on American TV, and who had yet to face a world-class professional opponent and was already 29 years old?
