Ronnie Shields, the trainer of Jermall Charlo, is siding with IBF, IBO, WBC, WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) to overcome Saul "Canelo" Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs).
The two middleweights will battle on September 16th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
This past Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Charlo moved up the middleweight division and became the mandatory challenger to Golovkin by crushing Sebastian Heiland in a WBC final eliminator.
Some believe Golovkin has aged after having a much tougher time than expected with Daniel Jacobs in March. The bout saw Golovkin go the twelve round distance for the first time in his career after stopping 23 opponents in a row.
Shields cautions that it's very wrong for anyone to compare Jacobs and Canelo.
"I feel that people are trying to compare Danny Jacobs to Canelo and you can’t do that because the styles are so different and ‘Triple G’ has problems with the style of a guy like Danny Jacobs, but you got to remember that Canelo is not a mover, he’s not the kind of guy that is going to move around, turn southpaw, have a long reach and stuff like that. That plays a big difference, styles make fights," Shields told On The Ropes Boxing Radio.
"I feel during this fight that Canelo is going to be right in front of Golovkin, and Golovkin will be able to hit him and ‘Triple G’ has a great jab when he uses it and so does Canelo. Canelo has speed, he is the faster of the two guys, but I think Gennady is the stronger of the two guys. Both guys can hit each other and I see it as a rock ‘em sock ‘em kind of fight, because neither guy is going to want to back down."
And when it comes down to it, Shields believes Golovkin will win. Shields went up against Canelo in 2014, when Canelo won a razor close twelve round split decision over one of the veteran trainer's other fighters, Erislandy Lara.
"I think it’s going to be a great fight, right now I am leaning towards Golovkin because I think he is the bigger guy, because he is more used to fighting the middleweights than Canelo. Golovkin is just a guy that is going to be in shape and he’s going to show good defense in this fight. A lot of people think I don’t like Canelo because of his fight with Lara and that’s all I hear from every reporter, but I have nothing against Canelo, they ask me who I think is going to win, that’s my assessment," Shields said.
2023-10-19 02:04:00
