Trainer Abel Sancez fears for Gennadiy Golovkin if he fights Canelo Alvarez a third time.
Golovkin’s former mentor, who was in his corner in the first two fights, said on The Pug and Copp Show podcast that the 38-year-old Kazakhstani could take a beating at the hands of the younger Mexican.
Golovkin, now trained by Johnathon Banks, and Alvarez reportedly agreed before the coronavirus pandemic took hold to fight in September.
“This one maybe will hurt. Not because I’m not with him, but [it could] hurt because he gets hurt,” Sanchez said during the podcast. “Not only [is the third meeting] the most significant, it’s the most dangerous because you’re talking about a guy who is at his peak now and believes he can do the same thing to Gennadiy that he did to [Sergey] Kovalev.
“[Alvarez] baited, baited, baited and waited for that right moment and it was destructive. I would hate to see Gennadiy go into that fight — or I would rather not see the fight — than to see Gennadiy succumb to something like that, not being prepared physically and mentally.”
Golovkin and Alvarez fought to a controversial split draw in September 2017. Alvarez won the rematch by a majority decision a year later, after which Golovkin left Sanchez.
Since then, Golovkin stopped Steve Rolls in four rounds but struggled in a taxing fight to earn a close decision over Sergey Derevyanchenko to win a vacant middleweight title in October. Some observers suggested after the latter performance that Triple-G is in decline.
Meanwhile, since the rematch, Alvarez stopped Rocky Fielding in three rounds, outpointed Danny Jacobs and stopped Kovalev in the 11th round to win a light heavyweight title in November.
Alvarez was tentatively scheduled to fight super middleweight titleholder Billy Joe Saunders in May but that fight was put on hold because of the pandemic and might not happen.