Almost exactly a year ago, the biggest boxing match that could possibly be made in the sport ended in an unsatisfying, yet logical conclusion.
Saul “Canelo” Alvarez met Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in a highly-anticipated middleweight bout and boxed their way to a great fight with momentum swings coming almost every round. It ended in a split draw with the judges scoring the fight 114-114, 115-113 for Golovkin and, laughably, 118-110 in favour of Alvarez.
Draws are never fun, but in this case the fight was so close that it makes perfect sense that we now are getting the rematch between the two this Saturday.
I had the chance to re-watch that first fight recently and scored it 114-114. More importantly, in re-examining the match I noticed some key adjustments that both will likely be making in this second clash.
Here’s what each guy should be looking to adjust Saturday.
The Numbers
Here’s a quick look at how the CompuBox numbers viewed the first Alvarez-Golovkin bout.
Stats aren’t everything, particularly in boxing, but in this case, the numbers really do paint a bizarre picture that immediately shows how each fighter should be looking to adjust.
In Golovkin’s case, this is a man who is feared for having some of the most freakish power in the history of the sport. Yet, he leaned heavily on his jab in the fight, pretty much to his detriment as he didn’t unload the kind of power shots that we’re used to seeing from him.
As for Alvarez, he didn’t jab enough. Perhaps leaning too heavily on his counter-punching abilities, Alvarez more often than not allowed Golovkin to establish the tone of their rounds together as he was the main aggressor.
Adjustments Canelo needs to make
For Alvarez, it begins and ends with him managing to dictate tempo and get into his own rhythm.
There are many ways he can do this. The first, as mentioned, is finding more opportunities to throw his jab.
Take a look at this clip from the very first round. Alvarez makes use of a sharp left jab to back Golovkin up a little and bait him into taking a big swing, setting up a nice counter left to the body.
This is a perfect example of how Alvarez can make use of his prodigious counter-punching timing and make Golovkin think twice about just bullying his way in on him.
Alvarez seemed too confident that he’d be able to rely on picking apart Golovkin’s aggression with his signature power counters, but the Kazahk fighter was acutely aware of Alvarez’s greatest weapon so he played around it. Alvarez never adjusted with something as simple as throwing out a jab more often to at least threaten another angle of attack.
Of course, you can’t really establish a jab unless you have the footwork to get yourself in position and, in that sense, Golovkin definitely trumps Alvarez. That doesn’t mean the Mexican star should allow himself to get constantly walked into the ropes and corner and trapped the way he did in the first fight.
As a natural counter-puncher, getting backed into the ropes isn’t exactly a bad thing for Alvarez as he’s proven to be very strong back there, but against Golovkin’s pressure he simply couldn’t find enough counter chances to back Golovkin up enough. If he wants to be more effective on Saturday, he’ll need to move more and find ways to keep the fight in the centre of the ring.
Looking back at it, you can see that all of Alvarez’s best work was done when the two men were staring each other down in the heart of the ring, such as this sequence in Round 6:
And his fabulous opening flurry in the 12th round:
These moments were Alvarez at his very best in the first match, when he had so much more of the ring to work with to evade Golovkin and find chances to mount an offence.
Before that, the only aggressive action Alvarez showed was looking to go to the body, something that he should continue in the rematch, but in greater volume. These were some of Alvarez’s most effective shots, especially early in the fight, as this destructive blow to Golovkin’s side demonstrates:
Alvarez needs a lot more of this, especially because of how tough Golovkin’s chin proved to be before. His head shots didn’t appear to phase Golovkin in the slightest, so maybe an even more focused assault on the body will do the trick.
Adjustments GGG needs to make
As mentioned before, Golovkin has some of the most devastating power ever seen in the sport.
The man has scored knockouts with both hands, shots to the body and from all sorts of wacky angles. Yet, against Alvarez, that trademark power appeared to have been holstered purposefully by Golovkin. As seen above, Golovkin threw a ton of jabs and not enough power shots.
An overarching theme of the fight was Golovkin’s ability to make use of his feet to cut off the ring by consistently walking Alvarez into the corner and towards the ropes. However, he didn’t follow through with the overbearing pressure he was creating by diving in going for the big kill shots — a staple of Golovkin’s oppressive style.
Coming into last year’s fight, Alvarez actually had one more knockout on his professional record than Golovkin, and his acute counter-punching ability coupled with that power makes him a particularly dangerous foe to go in on. Golovkin seemed very aware of the kind of threat in front of him and did his best to play around Alvarez’s counters by going to his jab early and often.
This was a big mistake on Golovkin’s part. A major factor in Golovkin’s success has been his iron chin and his ability to walk right through punches knowing he’s going to hit back way harder. Against Alvarez, Golovkin was far too respectful, far too often, especially because there were moments in the fight when Alvarez landed flush and Golovkin just came forward anyway, like he always does.
In that clip you see above, Alvarez caught Golovkin with a clean counter right, but Golovkin kept walking him back and managed to get in an overhand right of his own. Instead of keeping the pressure on, Golovkin backed up.
If Golovkin will stick to the same gameplan in the rematch, then he needs to use the jab to set up more offence. An often overlooked part of his career is the fact that he is a great boxer, and not just a knockout artist. Before turning pro, Golovkin boasted an astounding 345-5 amateur record. So the dude knows how to make use of his jab, and actually did use it at times to setup more rewarding offensive sequences like this one in the ninth round:
This illustrates how Golovkin can use his jab as means to begin potentially big pay-off sequences. He didn’t do this nearly enough before, but should look to press the advantage his jab can give him that much more on Saturday.
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