Sergio Mora believes that defeat to Canelo Alvarez should lead Gennadiy Golovkin to step away from any more fights against boxing’s elite.
While Canelo was given the win on the judges’ scorecards by a relatively narrow margin, many observers thought the Mexican was the clear winner.
Compared to the previous two fights between the pair, this was a less fraught bout and that led Mora to suggest that the Kazakh should return to middleweight and defend his belts, while avoiding Jermall Charlo, the division’s WBC champion.
However Mora sees a way forward for the 40-year-old unified champion.
“Maybe keep fighting at 160, not leave money on the table,” he told JABS. “It’s not like he got wiped out and it’s not like he got knocked out or hurt. It was close - according to the judges. He’ll not leave money on the table. Go back to 160, defend your belts. I think he has at least one more fight in him.
“Boxing retires you, and champions, Golovkin and many, many others, refuse to quit. They refuse to leave money on the table and they go out on their terms. Boxing retires them instead of them retiring from boxing, that’s just the way it goes. Golovkin has too much pride and those scorecards were tight. Ignorance is bliss and he’s gonna see what the judges saw.
“We’ve got an older version of a great champion and you can imagine Charlo is licking his lips and every middleweight wants to fight that Golovkin.
“He’s old. My last fight, I was 38. I had no legs. Once you pass 36, I would say that’s it. Golovkin showed every bit of his age. I don’t know what the judges saw, Golovkin was never in serious trouble but neither was Canelo. It wasn’t the going-out-with-a-bang trilogy we needed. We got a convincing winner, in our opinion, not a classic trilogy.
“I think he should go back to middleweight, defend his titles, but stay away from the elite.”