Canelo vs Golovkin needs a definitive winner – boxing can’t afford another poor night of judging

There are fights that arouse the bloodlust. There are cat-and-mouse games that empty the room.

There are highly technical duels of tenuous skills that absorb the connoisseurs but leave the thrill-seeking voyeurs cold. There are clashes of different styles that conspire to create beautiful battles.

There are mismatches that are so cynically out of balance that they threaten grievous bodily harm to the inferior opponents hired for the sole purpose of being beaten. Or worse.

Very occasionally, two brave men, equipped with the full compendium of the prize ring’s many talents, engage in astonishing battles. They elevate the most difficult of all games to the pinnacle of a noble art.

They do this with razor-sharp expertise of movement, laser speed and perfect timing. With thunderous thrusting blows that each resist with a jaw of stone and a heart of oak.

For such goggles to scale perfectly, they need to be some of the biggest prize fighters of their generation.

It is on that premise that we were lured to this cathedral city of boxing by Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golvkin. It’s on their promise that they’ve worked tirelessly to turn back the years to re-present themselves in their trilogy fight here this Saturday night as masters of their universe.

Each has reigned for the past few years as the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet. Each maintains that circumstances have tilted his star on its axis rather than dimmed by the passage of time and so many brutal battles.

Ask Canelo, the flamboyant Mexican, who is today the greatest boxer in the world and his answer is not Oleksandr Usyk, the former undisputed world cruiserweight champion who so spectacularly ousted Anthony Joshua as the major shareholder in the heavyweight crown.

“Me,” Alvarez says. ‘I’m still the best of all. The one who continues to face the big challenges. Still the undisputed super middleweight champion.” He says that even though he suffered a second shock loss in his career, against Russian light-heavyweight Dmitry Bivol, in his last fight.

He blames that defeat for taking it too much for granted that he could handle the bigger man. He denies that the wear and tear of 61 fights has taken its toll, even though he is only 32.

“I’m in my prime,” he says. “I am now at my perfect weight at 168 pounds. I feel fresh and strong. I am excited by this battle, which is one of the most important in my career.”

Ask Golovkin the Kazakh KO king if 40, which he just turned, is a dangerous age for a fighter and he says, “I feel as young as ever. I live the perfect healthy life. I’m ready to avenge the decisions Canelo got over me in our first two fights.”

And no, he disagrees that he looked a little jaded in the most recent intermediate fights he won while waiting four years for Alvarez to return to their bitter struggle.

Triple G believes he won their first fight, which was a draw, and probably their second to be judged in Canelo’s favour.

Meanwhile, a feud has developed. Alvarez says, “He’s not the nice person he pretends to be. I am all the more motivated by the nonsense he has said about me. I am driven to punish him severely because I know that if I beat him again, it could mean the end of his career.”

Golovkin says, “I don’t know why this fight is so personal to him, but I do want to knock him out for clean, fair boxing.”

Whether that’s a reference to Canelo failing a drug test in the midst of this rivalry or to the controversial judging of the first two fights, he leaves unsaid.

What they do agree on is that they are two of the preeminent fighters of this era. Not without justification. Both have overwhelming victory records, packed with knockouts.

Golovkin has scary one-hit power, as Martin Murray, Kell Brook and Martin Murray discovered to their chagrin. Alvarez inflicts deep pain through cumulative punching. Ask Amir Khan, Callum Smith and Billy Joe Saunders.

But the resistance of both is so great that they have withstood countless bombs landed on each other in parts one and two of a series that may now come to a glorious climax in the T-Mobile Arena.

That prospect is heightened by a potent mixture of furious will to crush a nemesis and fear of the consequences of defeat.

“They’ve already given us 24 fantastic rounds,” said promoter Eddie Hearn. “This one could be even more amazing. A defeat could spell the end for Gennady, or leave Canelo in a terrible position outside the top ten in the world.

“Victory would anchor the legacy of either one. Canelo could regain world domination. Triple G would have earned the right to a fourth fight, with the series tied with one win and a draw each.”

Ah, that word inheritance. Alvarez uses it when he says he has to “win for myself, for my country this Mexican Independence weekend, for my many fans who come to Vegas, for all the millions watching at home.”

Golvokin uses it when he speaks of “recovering from the pain of those decisions that have marked my perfect track record, even though I still believe in my heart that I am undefeated.”

The fires of pride are stoked into a furnace. Which of them is most in danger of being burned? Is Canelo worn out by so many tough fights? Is Golovkin past the age of full potency?

The casino sports books on the Vegas Strip are hands down. They cite Alvarez as the favorite.

Part of that calculation is that this is the land of Canelo. The arena will echo with mariachi bands and the roar of Viva Mexico from thousands of its compatriots who gather here for those patriotic celebrations.

But Golovkin, who hasn’t fought in his native Kazakhstan for 12 years, is so used to campaigning abroad that he was unaffected by the cacophonous support for Canelo during the first two fights in the same building.

Triple G wonders if he needs a knockout to win. Canelo would prefer to ‘put an end to this by stopping him within 12 laps’.

Most likely, it will lead to a decision. Hopefully a no-brainer. Neither Las Vegas nor boxing can afford another night of questionable judging in a fight of this magnitude and importance.

The eight-year age difference should give Canelo a head start in another memorable fight, but victory for him is not the foregone conclusion that many here on the Strip imagine.

And whoever has the upper hand must be the rightful and deserved winner of this battle for centuries, no matter how scary. All those involved in this potential epic and the sport itself deserve nothing less. Canelo and GGG included.

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