Canelo vs. GGG: When middleweight giants collide
The book on superfights hasn't been a particularly enthralling one - at least in recent boxing history.
Finalized long past its best-before date, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao put fans to sleep, and the casual variety likely didn't return until the Mayweather-Conor McGregor spectacle.
Saul "Canelo" Alvarez and Gennady "GGG" Golovkin will look to revive the age-old tradition of best-on-best when they lock horns at Las Vegas' T-Mobile Arena on Saturday in a bout widely expected to determine the sweet science's preeminent middleweight purveyor of pain.
The long-awaited blockbuster has been marinating for two years, largely thanks to its brokers. Retired boxer Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions - to which Alvarez is signed - wisely put the fight off until their meal ticket could get comfortable at middleweight. The 27-year-old Alvarez finally mustered up some much-needed gumption on May 6, vowing to square off with Golovkin immediately after taking a lopsided decision over Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.
While Alvarez's status as lineal champion and Golovkin's trio of divisional straps will be on the line for what will mark the latter's 19th title defense, the matchup's magnitude transcends the gold and leather at stake. To put it in the simplest terms: history of the highest order will be made.
Not only are a pair of boxing's incumbent giants - whose styles are all but tailor-made for each other - seeking pound-for-pound bragging rights, they're also clashing at the peaks of their respective powers not a month after Mayweather met boxing neophyte McGregor in a blatant cash grab. For his part, De La Hoya vehemently condemned the scrap as a potentially fatal blow to the sport.
In other words, whether a gaudy stroke of dumb luck or one of unadulterated genius on Golden Boy's part, the timing of this tilt, appropriately dubbed "Supremacy," could not be more fortuitous.
Despite turning pro at the alarmingly young age of 15, it's only after nearly a baker's dozen years in the ring that Alvarez has grown into the preeminent version of his ever-deadly self. Since losing to Mayweather on points over three years ago in a matchup many deemed he wasn't ready for, Alvarez has dispatched seven straight and gone from a lauded, yet developing, talent to a near world-beater, riding his stellar counter-punching and blistering body work to a jaw-dropping professional slate of 49-1-1.
"The progress he has made has been incredible," De La Hoya told the press in a recent conference call, per Bleacher Report's Jonathan Snowden. "I mean, in terms of punching power, his boxing ability, his combinations. His jab has improved tremendously. And it's only the beginning. I strongly feel he's only getting better."
Sharing the ring with Alvarez on his home country's independence day weekend is, oddly, a self-proclaimed "Mexican-style fighter." Armed with fearsome punching power and first-rate ring-cutting, Kazakhstan's Golovkin heads into the marquee matchup he's long been pining for with a spotless record of 37-0, including 33 knockouts. While he's been known to pressure his foes against the ropes and often defend punches with his head, the 35-year-old has yet to lose a step, most recently besting a game, technically proficient Daniel Jacobs with a sweep of the scorecards this past March.
Saturday's bout won't be the first time Alvarez and Golovkin have clashed. The pair sparred for the better part of a month in Golovkin's longtime base of Big Bear, Calif., back in 2011. At the time, Alvarez owned a WBC crown - Carlos Baldomir was his most prized scalp - while Golovkin owned wins over largely unheralded competition and had yet to book a fight stateside.
"We had to go to Panama to fight for nothing; we went to Germany and fought for nothing; went to Ukraine - fought for nothing," Golovkin's trainer, Abel Sanchez, recently recounted to ESPN's Dan Rafael. "But it was a way of building his name up, building his reputation up, building everything up. We were willing to do the sacrifice in order to get him to this point now."
Six years later, the pair of pugilists head into a career-defining matchup destined for the annals of boxing history with 86 wins and 67 knockouts between them.
"This is the biggest fight, probably, in the history of the middleweight division," De La Hoya added. "In terms of magnitude, in terms of PR, in terms of attention that it's receiving, in terms of people that will be watching, yeah, this has to be the biggest. ... It has all the ingredients to unfold to be one of the biggest fights in the last 30 years."
Supremacy, indeed.
(Photos courtesy: Action Images)