By: Sean Crose
Oscar De La Hoya is unimpressed with former protégé Canelo Alvarez’ performance against arch rival Gennady Golovkin last September. Canelo defeated Golovkin handily in their third battle, but De Ha Hoya tells FightHype Canelo shouldn’t have had to win by decision. “It was boring,” De La Hoya says of the super middleweight title bout. “It was slow. I actually expected Canelo to knock him out…and that’s exactly what he should have done.” As far as De La Hoya is concerned, Canelo at his best puts the Golovkin of 2022 away. “If Canelo throws three, four, five punch combinations,” says De La Hoya, “and presses the action and has the conditioning, he knocks out GGG hands down.”
De La Hoya admits Golovkin’s age may have had something to do with the Kazakh warriors’ less than stellar ring performance. “He’s an old forty,” De Ha Hoya says of Golovkin. “Bernard Hopkins was a young forty.” De La Hoya makes it clear Golovkin couldn’t have kept time from changing, but that Canelo could have taken advantage of Golovkin’s age. “Father time catches up to you man, that’s it,” De La Hoya says “If Canelo would have taken advantage of that, he’d have knocked him out.”
Although few if any observers felt Golovkin looked great in September’s fight, De La Hoya indicates that the man may have a road back to redemption. “A fight against Jaime Munguia would be perfect for both guys,” he says. “Golovkin beating a Jaime Munguia would get him back on top…among the hard core boxing fans he would be on top of the world again.” As for Canelo, De La Hoya is critical of more than just the man’s performance last September. “As a fan,” he says, “I don’t like that Canelo is beating the drum that he doesn’t want to fight Mexican fighters.”
De La Hoya remains puzzled about the issue. “I don’t really understand it,” he says. “I think any Mexican fighter out there that has a name, that has a record, that has a world title, can be very dangerous for Canelo.” The man known as the “Golden Boy” during his ring career may feel this is particularly true now that Canelo failed to impress him in the third Golovkin fight. “The first and second fights were a lot better,” he says. “It seemed like if Canelo couldn’t take it to second gear maybe he was worried about conditioning.” And why would that be? “Maybe something happened in his camp,” De La Hoya said.