By Norm Frauenheim-
In the political season, Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez are acting a lot like candidates.
Maybe, that’s because they have been campaigning longer than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump for a fight presumably sometime after somebody finally moves into the White House next January.
The Golovkin campaign stopped in London last Saturday with a predictable stoppage over welterweight-turned-middleweight Kell Brook in a bout surprising only because of marks left on GGG’s usually unmarked face.
A week later, this Saturday, Canelo takes his turn in the bully pulpit against unbeaten, yet little-known UK junior-middleweight Liam Smith in a ring on top of the Dallas Cowboys home field at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Tex., in a pay-per-view bout (HBO 9 pm ET/6 pm PT).
For those reading the tea leaves – and that’s just about everybody, the bruises represent early signs of vulnerability in GGG. Then again, they also might only mean the feared middleweight champion can take a punch.
Safe to say, the 26-year-old Canelo and his partisans connected the abrasions and welts like dots in a progression that perhaps confirms what they’ve been doing all along. Time has begun to do what no punch ever could to a younger GGG. It’s inevitable. It’s also business.
Next year –say in May during the annual Cinco de Mayo celebration, Golovkin will be 35, late enough in his prime to attack early signs that had not been evident until Brook’s punches landed. Of course, a potential symptom might also be nothing more than a pimple.
Nevertheless, there’s good news in talk from Dallas that Canelo and his corner are finally beginning to see a chance at beating GGG.
It’s never been about the weight, although Canelo’s corner continues to insist he’s really a 154-pound fighter, still growing into a true middleweight.
Yet, he declined to step on a scale for HBO in his dressing room just before his crushing stoppage of ex-junior-welterweight Amir Khan last May for the WBC’s 160-pound title, which he subsequently relinquished amid mounting criticism from frustrated fans who only want to see him against GGG.
The guess here is that Canelo didn’t want any of those fans to know that he is in fact a true middleweight already and perhaps a division or two heavier.
Time is the only scale that really matters here. As long as Canelo stays at 154, Golovkin gets a little older and maybe a lot more vulnerable to big punches from a fighter entering his prime just as GGG is exiting his own.
