Golovkin Expects Canelo To “Change A lot of Things” For Trilogy Fight

Gennadiy Golovkin explains that he’s not motivated by the first two meetings with Mexican superstar Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez.

They fought to a controversial twelve round split draw with 2017. The 2018 rematch saw Canelo win a close twelve round majority decision.

“I’m totally looking at the third fight as a brand new fight from scratch,” Golovkin told Reuters through an interpreter. “I don’t draw any motivation from previous fights.”

The first two bouts took place at the middleweight limit, where Golovkin currently holds the IBF, IBO, WBA world titles.

For the trilogy bout, which takes place on September 17 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, will see Golovkin head up to the super middleweight limit of 168-pounds to challenge Canelo for his undisputed championship.

Golovkin is perhaps the most dominant middleweight of his era and the Alvarez bout will mark the first time the Kazakh has moved up to super middleweight to fight above 160 pounds.

Canelo is coming off a decision loss to WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol, who outboxed the Mexican star in May.

The once-beaten boxer expects Canelo to make a lot of adjustments in the third encounter.

“He’s going to change a lot of things because this fight is taking place in a different weight division and his attitude will definitely change, so there will be a lot of surprises during this fight,” said Golovkin.

A 40-years-old, a severe defeat at the hands of Canelo could see Golovkin retire from the sport.

“It’s very difficult to point at just one particular factor that might influence my decision to end my career, unless something bad happens,” Golovkin said.

“But there are a lot of nuances, and they might play a role in making a decision to continue, but I am not going to spend a lot of time on those. We’ll see how it goes.”