Larry Merchant, the former HBO Boxing commentator, takes a moment to talk to our friends at Fight Hub TV about tomorrow’s middleweight title fight between Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin. Check out how he breaks down the fight...
Larry Merchant on how he views the Canelo-Golovkin rematch:
“Well I’m here as a fan, I was here for the first 12 rounds and I want to see the 13th round. Something that’s gotten lost in all of the understandable narratives leading up to the rematch is that it was a helluva fight! And the reason there’s a rematch is not because of the controversial decision and all of that, the reason is that it was a damn good fight!
On who has the advantage going into the fight:
“I don’t know if both of them have lost three tenths of a percent at this point, because one through inactivity and the other because he’s getting older. Style wise, age wise, I think maybe the advantage — slight advantage for Canelo. Golovkin, who I think is one of the best middlweights of modern times — I love the way he fought that fight — may feel that he has to get a little bit more reckless than relentless, which is his usual style. Hey, that could end the fight in a few rounds, or the other guy could take advantage of that. That’s why I wanna see this fight!
“Is this Golovkin’s last great stand? Is it one-sided? Or do we wanna see a third fight? I lean to Canelo because of his age and his style. I think that boxer-punchers, on this level of the game, in these kinds of showdowns, generally beat the puncher-boxer.
“[Canelo] may want a knockout but if he’s winning seven rounds to three he may be happy to win the fight. We don’t know and maybe he doesn’t know but I do think that there is real bitterness — it’s not made up hype — there is real bitterness between them. And in that case, then something could happen that nobody can predict.”