ESPN commentator and retired former world champion Tim Bradley believes Mexican superstar Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez 57-1-2 (39) is going to steamroll old foe Gennadiy Golovkin 42-1-1 (37) in their trilogy bout in September.
IBF middleweight champion Golovkin, 40, lifted the WBA belt from Ryota Murata by ninth round knockout at the Super Arena in Saitama, Japan on Saturday night.
The 36-year-old Murata was effective early, particularly with his body attack, while Golovkin looked rusty. It took until the middle rounds for Golovkin to settle into his rhythm, when he gradually took over the fight and wore Murata down.
It was the Kazakh’s first fight in 16 months.
The victory paves the way for a third fight against undisputed super middleweight champion Alvarez, who is set to step up in weight to face WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol 19-0 (11) at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on May 7.
Golovkin suffered a controversial split draw to Alvarez in their first fight in September 2017 and was edged in their rematch a year later by majority decision.
Bradley said that based on Golovkin’s performance against Murata, he can only see the third fight against Alvarez going one way.
“He’s going to mop up Golovkin,” Bradley said to FightHype. “I thought Golovkin looked terrible at the beginning and then closed strong at the end, which is good.
“It showed that he has great conditioning. He’s still able to fight. He still has some power, yeah. Punch placement and I saw some good lateral movement from him. But Canelo is on another level, man, for Golovkin.”
The first two fights between Golovkin and Alvarez took place at 160 pound. The trilogy fight will take place eight pounds north at super middleweight.
“[Going to 168], that’s going to slow [Golovkin] down,” Bradley said. “I think that’s honestly going to slow him down. It’s a different animal [with Canelo]. It’s [Golovkin’s] first fight at 168 pounds. Canelo has fought at that weight and 175. Come on, dog.
“So I see [Canelo] beating him and stopping him late. You saw it early on in his fight against Murata. Murata was going down to the body and pushing him back. That’s what Canelo is going to do. He’s going to press forward [against Golovkin].
“He’s a little more slippier than, a lot more slippier than Murata and he’s going to be landing his kill shots over the top – right hands, left hooks, whatever. He’s going to set him up.
“I think conditioning-wise, Canelo is at his peak right now, he’s fighting at his peak. I see him stopping [Golovkin], bro, and if he doesn’t stop him, he’s going to hurt him really badly in the later rounds for sure.”
Golovkin has not been dropped let alone stopped in his 16 year pro career.
