Terence Crawford’s close victory over faded 35-year-old Canelo Alvarez last Saturday made fans wonder how Bud would have done against a former former United Middleweight Champion, Gennadiy Golovkin.
Why a Prima Golovkin Crawford beat
- May
- Chin and durability
- Pressure
- Size and physicality
- Courage to mix it up
Movement versus power: GGG’s strategy
Crawford would certainly have used movement to try to neutralize Golovkin’s high -powered offense, which is likely to limit the hope of limiting the pondering in each round to a drop. It was Terence’s method for his razor victory over the slow foot Canelo this past weekend.
The most important version of Golovkin seems to be a much better fighter to cut off the ring on movers. So, the chances of Crawford using movement to make a decision against Golovkin without fighting him in a one-on-one way would have been slim. The survival rate for Terence could only have been against the shark -like GGG.
Crawford would have to fight against him. The amount of time that Terence could have stood with a young Golovkin and I, in my opinion, would have been a handful of rounds. I don’t believe Bud is built for it, and fights against a powerful middleweight like GGG.
GGG’s early wins
- Daniel Jacobs (March 2017, Age 34)
- Kell Brook (September 2016, Age 34)
- David Lemieux (October 2015, Age 33)
- Marco Antonio Rubio (October 2014, 32 years)
- Jaal (July 2014, 32 years)
Golovkin’s relentless pressure and competence
What we saw from the Geollude Crawford (42-0, 31 COs) against Canelo was that he lost a lot of his speed, and that he was most forced during long stretches of each round. This was a similar approach that Kell Brook tried to use against Golovkin on September 16, 2016.
The version of Brook was probably a better puncher than Crawford has ever been and has a more powerful stitch. There is no mention of the Golovkin-Brook fighting back today, and there is no doubt that Kell was a more powerful puncher than a Prime Crawford showed.
Brook’s blueprint for failure
Kell’s movement was initially effective for the first three rounds, but GGG hunted him and started taking him with body shots and taking his legs against the third round. By fifth place, Brook had nothing left and was forced to fight Golovkin in the pocket, where he left quickly, which forced the referee to stop the competition in round five.
Golovkin suffered his first career defeat against Canelo on September 15, 2018 via a questionable majority decision of 12 round at the age of 36. A year earlier, on September 16, 2017, GGG fought Canelo to a very controversial 12-round split draw.
Many fans believed that Golovkin was robbed of an excellent version of Alvarez in their first fight. It was also the second competition between them.
Last updated on 09/17/2025
