Eddie Hearn cannot envision a scenario in which Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin go 12 rounds again.
The British promoter, who works with Alvarez and Golovkin, predicted during his most recent appearance on “The DAZN Boxing Show” that one of these motivated rivals will conclude their trilogy with a knockout victory September 17 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Neither fighter has ever lost by knockout.
Alvarez won their 12-round rematch by majority decision in September 2018 at T-Mobile Arena, a year after their infamous 12-round split draw at the same venue.
“Everything I’m seeing from Gennadiy Golovkin looks like a man possessed,” Hearn told co-hosts Barak Bess and Akin Reyes during his weekly spot on their show. “Right? Up at 168 pounds, I’m telling you now, the benefits to Gennadiy Golovkin being up at 168, as opposed to shredding himself down for the 15th year of his career at 160, he looks like an absolute beast. He’s coming with everything to beat Canelo next week. And Canelo better be ready. I know how hard Canelo’s trained for this fight, because he’s coming off a defeat and he wants to win this fight bad and he wants to knock out Triple-G.”
Golovkin’s lone loss is the aforementioned majority-decision defeat to Alvarez. The IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion is 40 years old, though, and will make his debut at the super middleweight limit against Alvarez, who has won world titles in the 168-pound and 175-pound weight classes.
Mexico’s Alvarez (57-2-2, 39 KOs) lost his last fight, a decisive defeat to unbeaten Russian Dmitry Bivol in their 12-round light heavyweight championship match May 7 at T-Mobile Arena. Most oddsmakers still list Alvarez, who is eight years younger than Kazakhstan’s Golovkin, as at least a 4-1 favorite to beat Golovkin (42-1-1, 36 KOs) in their third fight, a DAZN Pay-Per-View main event.
Hearn, however, anticipates another highly competitive bout between them. He also thinks their third fight will be more entertaining than each of their first two meetings.
“Next week in Las Vegas, you better get ready to see an all-out war between these two,” Hearn said. “The buildup’s gonna be epic. They’re gonna go at it all week. But I’m telling you now, when that bell rings at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, these two will not take a step back. They will go to absolute war in this trilogy. And this fight will not go 12 rounds. No way. No way this time. And you’re gonna see the best of the three fights. Forget about Bivol. Forget about [Gilberto] Ramirez. All eyes on Las Vegas next week.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
