Gennadiy Golovkin: The Final Dance?
Win, lose, or draw against Saul Alvarez, the career of Gennadiy Golovkin is entering the final stages. The forthcoming trilogy fight with his old nemesis will almost certainly be the final dance for a fighter who deserved better in both their previous meetings. It looks very much like a fight he just can't win. For many reasons.
Golovkin is 40, and showing signs of decline beyond repair, perhaps the reason why he is being granted a third meeting with a fighter, who despite his many outstanding attributes as a fighter, likes to force an edge in timing and much more.
The Alvarez cheerleaders will beg to differ, but in 2017 and in the rematch the following year Golovkin proved he was the better fighter. The judges saw it differently of course. A draw and a split-decision defeat were scant consolations for what Golovkin brought to the table in those two career-defining fights.
But the cries of robbery and injustice will mean nothing when Golovkin gets a long overdue opportunity of redemption and more against a fighter who has benefited on more than one occasion by the stroke of a judge's pen. Even in his last fight, a fight he clearly lost against Dmitry Bivol, the judge's very nearly saved him.
Make no mistake, Golovkin is up against it. He is fighting father time and so much more.
Golovkin will head to Las Vegas on September 17th with more hope than conviction. He will believe, but on the evidence of the first two fights and his most recent fights, Golovkin is very much up against it. It might not quite be mission impossible. But trust me, it isn't far off. Golovkin will fight many things in a fight that is likely to be the final time he graces the sport with his talents.
Alvarez is 32, seemingly in his prime. Golovkin is in a boxing sense, at the pension stage of his career. In many ways, Golovkin is already several rounds down even before the first bell has chimed. The odds appear insurmountable.
Golovkin is a victim of boxing. A sport that is rarely as pure as it should be. A simple sport blinded and complicated by politics and more.
The wrong person had his hand raised in the previous two fights, and for many reasons, that is unlikely to change in Las Vegas. Timing is everything in boxing. And sadly for Golovkin, his time has passed. If there is some kind of pugilist kind of justice, Golovkin will turn back the clock and reverse the wrongs of the past. But boxing doesn't do happy endings. And Golovkin is likely to leave the gambling city, an outsider in more ways than one.
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