Gennadiy Golovkin 42-1-1 (37) is confident he will come away with the victory when he takes on undisputed super middleweight champion Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez 57-2-2 (39) for a third time at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday night.
The 40-year-old Kazakh had to settle for a split draw in their first bout in September 2017 and went down by majority decision a year later.
“This fight is important for the sport. It rewards fans and creates new fans. It is the biggest fight in boxing and certainly the biggest fight of our trilogy,” said Golovkin, who holds the WBA and IBF middleweight titles.
“This is the type of fight that makes boxing grow. Trilogies are historic and I’m excited to be part of one. It’s amazing. It means that the first two fights were so good that we were in demand and the fans wanted to see us fight each other again.
“I made a lot of concessions to Canelo to keep this fight intact because I’ve always wanted this third fight. I would never give up a championship belt or move to a different weight class to avoid an opponent. And while four years is too long between the last fight and this one, I’m relieved Canelo didn’t wait until I was 50 to agree to a third fight. Because for awhile it seemed that was a strong possibility.”
Also on the card rising super middleweight Diego Pacheco 15-0 (11) takes on Enrique Collazo 16-2-1 (11)
“On the date of Canelo-GGG II, that’s the day that I signed my contract with Eddie Hearn and Matchroom,” said Pacheco. “This has brought back so many memories and I’m honored to be on the card. I’m so grateful for where I am, and I just want to make the most of these opportunities.
“I was part of Canelo’s camp for the Callum Smith fight in San Antonio and I was meant to be on the undercard too, but I got sick in the build-up. I got in trouble too because I didn’t want to tell anyone at first that I was sick because I really wanted to fight on the card, but I could have got Canelo sick and COVID was around then so I had to stop training and I couldn’t fight. So, it’s great to be here now.
“Canelo is so strong. Even blocking or parrying his jabs, you can feel the power, his hands are like rocks. I was told I was only going to spar three rounds with Canelo, but then after three I was looking good and I was moving well, and it was good for him, so it was ‘let’s do one more’ and ‘let’s do one more’.
“We did six rounds and then I went back in again, so that made me feel good and working with David Benavidez is great for me, I’m doing lots of rounds with him and it’s all boosting my confidence. I’m a big GGG fan, but I think that Canelo takes the third one.”
