Canelo Alvarez vs Gennady Golovkin Prediction

While Floyd Mayweather vs Conor McGregor dominates the headlines, true boxing fans know that Canelo Alvarez vs Gennady Golovkin is the far better fight! 

Alvarez (49–1–1 (34 KO) is moving up in weight (from 154 pounds to 160 pounds) to challenge Golovkin (37–0–0 (33 KO) for the lineal middleweight championship of the world.

Conventional wisdom says that a good big man (Golovkin) beats a good smaller man (Alvarez) nine times out of 10.

But Who Has The Edge?

In a matchup that has fight of the year written all over it, I give the edge to GGG. As I stated earlier, he’s the naturally bigger man. Although their reaches are both around 70 inches, Golovkin is an inch taller and has been campaigning at middleweight his entire career.

Although Alvarez has always been a big super welterweight/junior middleweight, he’s fought at 147/154 pounds his entire career.

With both fighters being excellent boxer-punchers with only one loss between them in a combined 88 fights, neither man has a decided edge in any category. Neither is fleet of foot. But both fighters have decent hand speed, excellent chins, and good punching power.

Alvarez has faced stiffer competition in my eyes. Although he lost decisively to Floyd Mayweather, there is no shame in losing to the best boxer of this generation. He probably learned more in that loss than his previous wins leading up to that fight.

I did not like how much Golovkin struggled in his latest title defense against the capable, hard-hitting Daniel Jacobs. But he got the win. And thankfully for him, Alvarez is not a big middleweight like Jacobs.

The Final Verdict

Sticking with my “size” theme, Gennady Golovkin will prove too big, too strong, and ultimately, too powerful for Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. In an exciting, hotly-contested fight, GGG will retain the lineal middleweight championship by late TKO, around round 10.