As much as the boxers themselves, boxing trilogies have long helped frame the epochs of their sport. Rubber matches such as Ali vs. Frazier, Ali vs. Norton, Patterson vs. Johansson, Zale vs. Graziano, and other triptychs determined who was the better of two evenly matched masters of the noble art.
Last night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, we witnessed a punctuating moment in pugilistic history, when Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (42-1-2, 37 knockouts) and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (58-2-2, 39 knockouts) clashed for the third time, with Alvarez defending his undisputed super-middleweight title.
In September 2017, Alvarez eked out—or perhaps it would be more apt to say, “was gifted with”—a draw. A year later, Alvarez made adjustments and improved but only enough to come away with a hotly contested split decision victory.
Given the astronomical pay-per-view numbers and the high quality of the two fights, it would have been logical for promoters to arrange a third deciding contest immediately. Then again, logic and boxing have not always been good partners.
The boxing public has had to wait four years for these consummate artists of violence to reunite under the klieg lights. As it became evident this evening, the delay was more of a liver shot to the 40-year-old Golovkin than it was to the 32-year-old Alvarez.
