He came, he saw, he conquered. Canelo Alvarez faced off against Gennadiy ‘GGG’ Golovkin in the rubber match of their trilogy. The two squared off at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas last night. The result – a unanimous decision victory Canelo. Yet, not only did Canelo win the fight. He gave a performance that quelled any doubts if he could regain old form and the questionable outcomes of the first two fights in the trilogy.
Through the first seven rounds Canelo simply outboxed, outpunched, and out hustled Golovkin. Peppering GGG with a great combination of jabs, body punches and head shots. Leaving GGG swelled and looking very much like a 40-year-old fighter. GGG is a notoriously slow starter, however, he did seem to age overnight in this bout. Golovkin threw jabs in the early rounds, but barely got off any right hands he is famous for stopping opponents with. He quite simply did not appear to be able to let his hands go.
The Kazakh finally broke through in Round 8, staggering Canelo. It seemed to be the spark he needed. He began to fire the right hand and connected with some effective shots in Round 9 after he pinned Alvarez in the corner. Round 10 saw Golovkin deliver more of the same, with several right uppercuts on the inside set up by Golovkin’s excellent jab. After an 11th round in which an accidental head-butt busted Alvarez open over the right eye, Golovkin finished strong in the 12th. But it simply was not enough. Canelo had built up a significant enough lead over the first eight rounds of the fight. The judges scored the bout 116-112, 115-113 and 115-113 all giving Alvarez a unanimous decision.
See the highlights of Canelo vs. GGG 3 here.
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