TYPICALLY, the third fight of any trilogy tends to be the least interesting of the three on paper and is driven more by financial motivation than anything else. At best, it’s a rubber match, a decider, the opportunity to establish once and for all the pecking order of two fighters who have previously split two fights. Yet, at its worst, it can be a cash grab, or a shoehorned novelty which relies on nostalgia, familiarity, and a love of an already recognised franchise to convince you it makes sense.
In the case of Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez and Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, the third fight of their trilogy rests, at this point, somewhere in the middle. Which is to say, it is not a fight the world has necessarily been calling for, at least not in 2022, yet it is also not a fight that is so far past its use-by-date that it comes across as cynical, or desperate, or meaningless.
Instead, what we have with Álvarez and Golovkin this Saturday (September 17) in Las Vegas is a fight between two fighters inextricably linked whose entire rivalry is predicated on things either unspoken or undecided. They have
