By Norm Frauenheim –
LAS VEGAS – Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin kept their cool under a hot desert sun Friday afternoon at a staged weigh-in.
It was more concert than conflict.
More of a festival than a fight.
Hostility was only there in the eyes and the words exchanged after both fighters stepped off the scale, each a fraction of a pound lighter than the super-middleweight maximum for their third fight Saturday at T-Mobile Arena.
At a weigh-in behind closed doors a few hours before the show on the plaza outside of T-Mobile, Golovkin was at a career-high 167.8 pounds. Canelo, the undisputed defending super-middleweight champ, weighed 167.4.
On the scale, their obligations were met. In the ring, their promises remain to be delivered in a long-awaited, long-overdue bout (8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT) that figures to be the final punctuation point to a contentious rivalry.
Canelo (57-2-2, 39 KOs) has promised a stoppage. He says it will end within 12 rounds. The first bout in 2017 ended in a draw. The rematch in 2018 ended in Canelo winning a majority decision. Controversy has lingered ever since.
“Come on, if you guys are real boxing fans, you know who is the real champ,’’ said Golovkin (42-1-1, 33 KOs), a middleweight champion who is fighting at super-middle for the first time ever.
GGG has long argued that he won the first two. The question is whether he can deliver the proof. He’s 40, at least a couple of years past his prime. Canelo knows that.
At 32, Canelo is presumably still in his prime, although there were questions – still unanswered – left in the wake of only his second loss in his last outing against light-heavyweight Dmitry Bivol.
He, too, has much to prove against a fighter who has angered him ever since he tested positive for clenbuterol before their 2018 fight. Canelo blamed the test on tainted beef.
GGG dismissed Canelo’s explanation, suggesting that was it was more like the manure produced by the beef.
Over the four years since their last fight, the two have never really settled the argument. It looks as if they’ll get a final chance to do so Saturday on DAZN pay-per-view ($64.99 for subscribers/$84.99 for non-subscribers).
A stoppage, perhaps, is the best way for Canelo to silence GGG, who says he saw nothing new in Canelo during their ritual face-to-face stare-down Friday.
“Maybe, he saw nothing new in my eyes,’’ Canelo said to a roaring crowd of his loyal fans Friday. “But he’ll see something new in the ring.’’
DAZN executives hope so. They have wanted the third fight for four years. They have invested in it heavily. The total purse is $65 million. But there are questions about whether the fight is too far past its due date.There was a huge crowd on the plaza. for the staged weigh-in. As of Friday, however, the fight had yet to sell out.