Gennady Golovkin keeps war of words going with Canelo Alvarez ahead of heated rematch
For much of his career as boxing’s middleweight champion, Gennady Golovkin had little to say about his opponents. But once Canelo Alvarez tested positive in February for the banned substance Clenbuterol, Golovkin has been a veritable chatterbox.
Golovkin will defend his WBA-WBC middleweight belts against Alvarez, his now-bitter rival, on Sept. 15 at T-Mobile Arena in a hotly anticipated rematch. Golovkin held a media conference call on Tuesday in which he discussed the bout and his feelings toward Alvarez.
He did not hold back. Here are some of the highlights:
Asked if he had regrets the fight didn’t happen five or six years ago and can the bout live up to the hype this much later:
“Quite possible. Quite possible. But not even five years ago, even two years ago, we couldn’t get them to fight us. They were avoiding the fight every way possible. If you remember, they even gave up one of the belts, the WBC belt, they gave it up, to avoid us.”
Response to Canelo trainer Chepo Reynoso referring to him as a donkey on HBO’s “24/7” for doing the same thing repeatedly:
“What I want to say is I don’t want to go so low at the level of statements like that. It just shows a lack of class. It shows low class. It just shows a lack of upbringing, lack of intelligence. It just shows, again, how they behave themselves. I’m never able to say anything so low about anybody. So I just don’t want to comment about this anymore.”
Response to Canelo’s vow to be more aggressive in the rematch:
“Well, it doesn’t matter what they say. We’ll see what happens on September 15 because very often what they say doesn’t correspond to what they do. So let’s wait until September 15.”
How have you evolved with Abel Sanchez as your trainer:
“I am really thankful that Abel is not bringing in any illegal and banned substances into my fighting career and hasn’t taught me something which was not allowed in boxing, so I’m really thankful for him of being such a great coach.”
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