Former world champion Timothy Bradley believes that Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez has all the advantages when he faces Gennadiy Golovkin for a third time.
Golovkin beat Ryoto Murata in nine rounds on Saturday in Japan, earning the WBA belt to add to his IBF strap.
As a result of the win he is expected to move up to 168lbs for a trilogy rematch with Canelo, who will move down from his fight with Dmitry Bivol at light heavyweight, in a fight shown live on DAZN. That extra weight, Bradley believes, will count against the 40-year-old Kazakhstan athlete.
GGG was the clear victor but Murata did some damage with some body shots earlier in the fight, and with miles on the clock that might have shown Canelo the way forward.
"He’s going to mop up Golovkin,” Bradley told FightHype.com. “I thought Golovkin looked terrible at the beginning and then closed strong at the end, which is good. It showed that he has great conditioning. He’s still able to fight. He still has some power, yeah. Punch placement, and I saw some good lateral movement from him. But Canelo is on another level, man, for Golovkin,"
"[Going to 168], that’s going to slow [Golovkin] down, I think that’s honestly going to slow him down. It’s a different animal [with Canelo]. It’s [Golovkin's] first fight at 168 pounds. Canelo has fought at that weight and 175. Come on, dog.
“So, I see [Canelo] beating him and stopping him late. You saw it early on in his fight against Murata, Murata was going down to the body and pushing him back. That’s what Canelo is going to do. He’s going to press forward [against Golovkin].
"He’s a little more slippier than, a lot more slippier than Murata and he’s going to be landing his kill shots over the top, right hands, left hooks, whatever. He’s going to set him up. I think conditioning-wise, Canelo is at his peak right now, he’s fighting at his peak. I see him stopping [Golovkin], bro, and if he doesn’t stop him, he’s going to hurt him really badly in the later rounds for sure."