Gennady Golovkin’s chin is the stuff of legend, and that has perhaps never been more apparent than when he’s traded punches with Saul ‘Canelo’ Álvarez.
Having faced each other twice before, and readying themselves for another scrap this Saturday, both fighters are well aware that a knockout, or even a knock down, won’t be coming easy.
The action was relentless in their first fight. It ended in a split-draw, however many feel that Golovkin should have walked out of the arena the victor. Despite that, one the shots of the fight came from Canelo.
In the ninth, a huge right hand knocked the sweat from ‘GGG’ and the crowd gasped. Canelo has 39 wins via KO, but Golovkin remained on the right side of that record. In fact, he barely took a step back.
Rewatching the moment on DAZN in the build up to the fight, he’s now claimed that the punch felt more like a slap.
“I remember that punch. Well, I let it get through. You know, it wasn’t – I don’t know what to call it – it wasn’t hard. It felt kind of like a slap I guess. A slap or a sliding punch. Well, it didn’t do too much.”
Golovkin went on to outland Canelo in that round. In fact, he did so in ten out of the twelve.
He’s yet to be knocked down in a career spanning 44 fights. His Mexican opponent is the same, despite coming close in his last fight with Dmitry Bivol.
The fact that the pair can both take shots as hard as they dish them out played a big role in making their previous meetings so intriguing, and is sure to be a big part of the third (and likely final) time they share the ring.