By Norm Frauenheim-
The name is little bit different. The corner is a lot different. Whether the differences add up to a reinvented fighter are about to be tested, first Saturday at New York’s Madison Square Garden in what looks to be a rehearsal for a third fight in a trilogy that could define a middleweight legacy still known for the GGG signature.
Let’s start with the name. Call him Gennadiy. That’s no typo. There’s an i between the d and y because there always has been, said Golovkin (38-1-1, 34 KOs), the former Gennady who fights Steve Rolls (19-0, 10 KOs) in his first bout (DAZN 9 p.m. ET) since a majority-decision loss to Canelo Alvarez in a rematch last September.
Go ahead and try to connect the dots on why he added the single vowel now and not before the controversial draw and then loss in his rivalry with Canelo. You still wind up with a speculative puzzle. But the guess here is that Golovkin wants to start anew by righting all the wrongs.
First, the name. Then, a third fight with Canelo that he believes will forever prove he should have been judged the winner in each of the first two. Just a matter of correcting the record. For Golovkin, however, that task is accented with some urgency.
He’s 37, which is somewhere between prime time and retirement on a fighter’s career clock. He hits the reset button by — in effect — re-introducing himself with a first name altered with an appropriate I, as if to say:
“I have changed.’’
Maybe, he has.
If so, a key to those changes will come about because of a new corner, Johnathon Banks instead of Abel Sanchez. There was nothing pretty about the split with Sanchez, the longtime GGG trainer who was angry at what he said was an insulting offer after Golovkin signed with DAZN for a reported $100 million. GGG’s lowball might have been his way of moving on. Sanchez’ pride would get in the way of a renewed deal. And it did.
It was painful. But it was boxing. And it was business. In retrospect, it simply looks like a GGG step toward change. It’s clear he’s back in the ring for one reason: A third fight with Canelo.
“One of the reason Gennadiy chose The Zone (DAZN) was that it was the clearest path to a third fight,’’ GGG promoter Tom Loeffler said at news conference introducing Banks on the afternoon before Canelo, DAZN’s marquee client, scored a unanimous decision over Daniel Jacobs on May 4 at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena.
Golovkin sat at the T-Mobile ringside that night and witnessed a dominant Canelo victory over Jacobs that was full of lessons about why change was necessary. Go ahead and argue about the judging in each of their first two fights. Against Jacobs, however, it was clear that Canelo is on a roll. From fight-to-fight, he is getting better by increments. At 28, Canelo is entering his prime. At 37, Golovkin is leaving his
There were signs of stagnancy in his two fights against Canelo. He landed big shots, especially in the first fight. In the second fight, however, Canelo’s newfound upper-body moment was a key to eluding much of GGG’s power. There was an ominous sign in the CompuBox stats. GGG landed only eight body shots in the first fight. He landed only six in the rematch. Over 24 rounds, he’ averaging less than one body punch a round.
If Canelo’s momentum continues at its steamrolling rate and GGG stays at a career plateau, the third fight could be all Canelo. Hence, the GGG changes.
“He’s a big puncher, which in my opinion is why he needs to throw more of them,’’ Banks, a former cruiserweight campion and an Emanuel Steward student, said at the May news conference.
More punches, a lot more, would be the punctuation – dotting the i in Gennadiy – for what might be the most significant change of all.