Gennadiy Golovkin has laid some questions at Saul Alvarez’s door ahead of their trilogy clash next month.
The WBA, IBF and IBO middleweight champion steps up to super-middleweight on September 17.
Golovkin (42-1-1, 37 KOs) meets ‘Canelo’ at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas for the third time as he challenges for the Mexican’s WBA Super, IBF, WBO and WBC titles in the 168-pound division.
But the Kazakh has some reservations about the achievements of the 32-year-old, who has won world titles as high as light-heavyweight and as low as aper-welterweight.
Speaking to Compas On The beat, Golovkin said:
“I’m not that kind of person who’s going to belittle any athlete’s achievements and Canelo’s achieved a lot.
“But there are some other questions about how he did that and what he used. I did not say something just because I just came up with it. There are lab results.”
The animosity between the pair stems back to 2018, when Alvarez failed two drug tests three days apart from each other in mid-February before their rematch and was handed a one-year ban, backdated six months to the first clash between the pair in August 2017.
The results of the first two fights between the pair ended contentiously, with a split draw in the first one and a majority decision win for Alvarez in the second.
The third fight against Golovkin will be Alvarez’s first appearance since he suffered only the second defeat of his professional career, having been outpointed by Dmitry Bivol at the same venue back in May when he stepped up to challenge the Russian for the WBA world title at 175 pounds.
Golovkin continued:
“The doctor said that they were the results of water testing and when asked, I said, ‘Yes, I believe that he cheated.’
“And if somebody in his team didn’t like my words, I believe it’s their problem.”