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sports Monday 19 SepteMber 2022

Canelo-GGG underwhelms, but boxing has more punches to throw

By GREG BEACHAM bulging bank accounts late rounds Saturday night,
AP Sports Writer from their popularity — but T-Mobile Arena was in a
LAS VEGAS (AP) — If you in a sport built on blood, frenzy.
know a lifelong boxing fan, sweat and toughness, a What's more, only the rosi-
chances are you know bout without serious dam- est retrospection could blur
somebody with rosy retro- age or drama just won't a fan's vision of the out-
spection. satisfy a large portion of the standing fighters and com-
That's the term for the psy- boxing public. pelling matchups in the
chological phenomenon "This is high level, the best sport's near future.
that leads people to be- fight for boxing," Golovkin Outstanding fighters
lieve the past was much said afterward. "Look at abound in nearly every
better than the present. his face. Look at my face. weight class, and cham-
Rosy retrospection inflicts It's high level because we pions are rising from more
many people who closely trained well, and this shows spots on the globe than at
watched the boxing greats that we did a very good Canelo Alvarez, right, fights Gennady Golovkin in a super mid- any time in the sport's his-
of the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s. fight, very good quality." dleweight title boxing match, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022, in Las tory. In the past decade,
Most modern fighters don't Those fans with rosy retro- Vegas. women's boxing has grown
stand up to their memory spection seem to expect a Associated Press from a disrespected side-
of giants from an era when violent classic in every big show to a viable career
boxing attracted more of night, forgetting about the third victory over Roberto fewer and farther be- for dozens of fighters com-
the world's top athletes countless megafights that Durán in 1989 to Rafael tween. But few live sport- peting at previously un-
and reigned supreme on have underdelivered over Márquez's unsightly finish of ing events can still match seen levels of ability. Jer-
sports pages and television the decades. Even the a worn-out Israel Vázquez the pure excitement of at- mell Charlo, Naoya Inoue
with passion and drama. greatest multi-fight rivalries in 2010. tending a big fight night: and Jesse "Bam" Rodriguez
Boxing has declined in over- have flopped in their fina- Boxing doesn't have as When Golovkin shook off have all produced spec-
all popularity from its peer- les before, from Sugar Ray many giants, and its truly his slow start and began to tacular knockout victories
less height, and the natu- Leonard's anticlimactic transcendent events are connect with Canelo in the in title fights this year.q
ral inclination is to assume
the quality of the sport has
declined as well. Canelo
Álvarez's clear unanimous-
decision victory over Gen-
nady Golovkin on Saturday
night is the biggest fight
currently on the boxing
calendar for the second
half of 2022, but its lack of
primal pleasures left some
fans wondering if that's the
best boxing can do.
"I think we had a great
fight," Álvarez insisted after-
ward. "Not every fight can
be a knockout. That's just
boxing. That's the way it al-
ways is. We had blood. We
fought hard. My fans are
happy."
Canelo is correct, actually:
The good old days weren't
always good, and modern
boxing has plenty to offer
— even if the sport's most
recent showcase event
didn't deliver that punch in
the gut.
This third meeting between
two of the current era's
greatest champions was
not a viscerally thrilling
bout, and neither fighter
scored so much as a knock-
down in the entire trilogy.
The 40-year-old Golovkin
looked slower than ever,
and Canelo grew weary in
the late rounds while nurs-
ing an injured left wrist.
All three bouts were still
elite-level competition be-
tween two beloved fighters
with worldwide fame and