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Boxing Betting Lines: Now that Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao have retired, boxing is really missing its tremendous superstars. Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez is about as big of a name as you've got at the moment, as the Mexican still hasn't been beaten by anyone aside from Mayweather in his career. Gennady Golovkin is still undefeated and is a knockout machine.
Without a real competitor in their current divisions, these two men were made to fight with one another, albeit with a huge question looming about the weight they'll fight at. The fact that we've all been made to wait for it is going to make the inevitable final fight announcement all the sweeter.
Tale of the Tape
Gennady Golovkin
Nickname: GGG
Nationality: Kazakhstani
Height: 5-foot-10
Reach: 70 inches
Record: 35-0-0
Knockouts: 32
Saul Alvarez
Nickname: Canelo
Nationality: Mexican
Height: 5-foot-9
Reach: 70.5 inches
Record: 47-1-1
Knockouts: 33
Gennady Golovkin Recent Form
Golovkin just continues to add victories to his resume. He's 34 years old and still has yet to be beaten, and he's held the WBA middleweight title since 2010 and the IBO middleweight belt since the end of 2011. In 2014, he added the WBC middleweight title, and just this past October, he picked up the IBF middleweight title as well. Pretty much if there's a middleweight fighter on the earth who has tried to fight against GGG, the Kazakh fighter has come out on top.
It's not like Golovkin has been fighting against a bunch of stiffs either. American Dominic Wade was 18-0-0 when he ran into his bout against GGG, and he ended up getting knocked out in Inglewood at 2:37 of the second round. Prior to that, David Lemieux, Willie Monroe Jr. and Martin Murray all came and went with a whimper.
Murray actually gave GGG his best fight in quite some time. It didn't quite go the distance, but Murray at least lasted into the 11th round, something you don't see against Golovkin all that often. In fact, his last three fights have been stopped before the end of Round 8, and he's only had to go past the eighth once in his last five years in the ring.
Canelo Alvarez Recent Form
Alvarez already has 49 fights under his belt in spite of the fact that he's only 25 years old. He's got a real shot to get to 100 bouts in his career, a number which is absolutely unheard of. He's a fighter's fighter and a champion's champion, and there isn't a bout he'll shy away from. In fact, immediately after beating Amir Khan in May, he called out GGG for this mega fight.
Alvarez has been taking on all sorts of contenders in the light middleweight division of late. Sure, he was beaten by Mayweather in September 2013, but since then, he's had some really big bouts, not the least of which came against Khan and Miguel Cotto. With Mayweather out of the picture, there's no doubt who the best light middleweight is in the world.
Alvarez has stepped up his game just a bit to fight against Khan and Cotto at a catchweight of 155 pounds, and he's going to have to bulk up again in this match if he wants to fight Golovkin.
Keys to the Fight
The only sticking point right now in this fight seems to be whether Alvarez is willing to make the full jump up to the middleweight division. Golovkin has made it clear that he's fighting at 160 pounds and no less, and Alvarez is much more suited to fight at around 150 pounds. He's been bulking up in recent fights, but this is a large jump.
The big thing question we have about Golovkin is whether he can make it a full 12 rounds in a bout, especially against a speedy fighter like Alvarez. He's literally never had to do so in his career. He's the power fighter of all power fighters, and he's going to have to figure out how to catch Alvarez with a flurry if he wants to win this bout. That said, power often wins these big fights, and that's why many suspect GGG would be at least a -300 favorite if he was to step in the ring with Alvarez.
As far as the Mexican fighter goes, he did well by scheduling Khan, a powerful fighter in his own right to get ready for this match. Alvarez did the job, finishing off Khan in the sixth round via knockout, but he's almost certainly not knocking out Golovkin and will have to push this fight the distance.
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