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Canelo Alvarez barely hid his disdain for rival Gennady Golovkin during the media tour in Los Angeles and New York to promote their September 17 fight for the undisputed super middleweight title at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Alvarez, who tied his first fight in 2017 and won his second in 2018, called Golovkin “an asshole” in interviews in Los Angeles. His anger is largely in response to Golovkin’s comments about him in 2018 shortly after Alvarez tested positive for the banned substance clenbuterol, forcing their second fight to be postponed.
Alvarez said the positive test was due to eating contaminated meat. And an anti-doping official confirmed in 2018 that the values in Alvarez’s positive test matched those.
Golovkin was very critical of Alvarez at the time, saying: “He’s proving he benefits from everyone and he can get away with it. The commentators, commission, doping commission, that’s a very bad deal, [it is] not athletic. Check him out with a polygraph and then we can figure everything out.”
The professional respect between them ended at that point and has only gotten worse since.
Speaking to Yahoo Sports on Tuesday, Golovkin didn’t shy away from his 2018 criticism.
“I stand by my words,” Golovkin said. “I take full responsibility for everything I said. But we’re not talking about any allegations. We’re talking real facts. He’s the one who tested positive and he’s the one trying to make excuses and trying to blame other people. This behavior is, I would say, clownish in nature. I would say that maybe they’re like, “Well, testing positive once or twice or three times, that doesn’t count.” Maybe because I’m not a member of the pajama club, that’s why they’re mad at me.”
Golovkin refers to Alvarez and members of his team, including coach Eddy Reynoso and promoter Eddie Hearn, as “the slumber club.”
The fight will be sold on DAZN PPV and promoted by Hearn’s Matchroom Sport. Golovkin didn’t hide his contempt for any of them, as he believes they favor Alvarez.
Hearn was constantly at Alvarez’s side during press stops and walked the red carpet with him.
Golovkin grinned widely when asked about it, expressing frustration at what he believes to be a lack of support. But his comments also expressed contempt for her.
He said of his questioner, “You analyze the situation and come to the right conclusion.” But then he proceeded to dismiss the obvious insult when he essentially said he didn’t respect her.
“It doesn’t bother me much,” he said. “I would use the words that a prominent athlete once said, ‘He just doesn’t know anything about boxing.’ I believe that about her. I hope the opportunity arises to work together and meet to help them come together and find common ground and that will bring them to a new understanding of this sport.”
Golovkin felt he had won each of the first two fights with Alvarez. The first was a shared draw, but Golovkin wasn’t as upset by that result as the second. As the reigning champion, he did not lose his belt in the draw.
But he felt he had won the rematch and it was taken from him. That cost him his titles and helped propel Alvarez to the top of the sport.
Despite their personal differences, Golovkin respects Alvarez as a fighter. Alvarez lost to Dmitry Bivol in a light heavyweight title fight in May. Golovkin said he hasn’t seen the full fight yet, but said he wasn’t sure he could take anything away from it.
He meant that as a compliment to Alvarez.
“Canelo showed that he learns from his mistakes,” said Golovkin. “He’s not a fighter who makes the same mistake twice. But at the same time [the Alvarez-Bivol fight] must be analyzed.”
