A Timeline of Pettiness Between Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez

Things weren’t always so petty between Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez. The two used to be sparring partners way before becoming the top two middleweights in the world. But in 2018, respect is long gone and all the rivals want to do Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas (HBO PPV, 8 pm ET) is slug the shit out of each other when they step back into the ring.

When they fought for real last September, the reverence went both ways and the superstars delivered an entertaining fight that was marred by one judge’s absurd scoreboard. In the end, boxing fans won because the draw meant the two were destined for a rematch until tainted meat officially entered the sports lexicon.

Since Canelo (49-1-2, 34 KOs) was caught with performance enhancing drugs in his system earlier this year, causing Canelo-GGG II to be postponed from its original May 5 date, Golovkin (38-0-1, 34 KOs) and his camp have been on the offensive. They’ve called out Canelo’s integrity and taken shots at his trainers and legendary promoter.

“For me, it’s very difficult personally, especially for all the things that’s been said, all of the offensive claims that have been made about me,” Alvarez said.

But if you want to trace the bad blood between the two fighters and their camps, it all low-key started in the hours leading up to the first fight. So how did Canelo-GGG II turn so petty before they throw down in the biggest fight of the year? We laid out a timeline of the pettiness between Canelo and GGG as we gear up for the showdown.

Abel Sanchez, GGG’s trainer who has never been afraid to hold back his opinion, was on hand to watch Alvarez get his hands wrapped before the first fight. It’s customary for a member of the opposing boxer’s team to observe the practice. But when Sanchez saw a member of Team Alvarez using the “stacking” method on Canelo—which almost every state outlaws and many boxing observers contend is cheating since it supposedly makes the fist harder and/or creates more tension in the wrist—Sanchez threatened to file a protest.

“The reason Abel was so surprised by the wraps last time is every jurisdiction GGG has fought in didn’t allow the stacking,” Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler said. “That’s why he filed the protest. And it wasn’t received very well.”

Sanchez didn’t hold back after the rematch was officially announced. He had already gone on the record that Canelo never hurt GGG in the first meeting, that he lacked power, and mostly ran around the ring. In a public press conference held in downtown Los Angeles, Sanchez doubled down on those marks when he said Canelo back-peddled so much that there was no way GGG could knock him out in six rounds or less, like Sanchez originally predicted.

Alvarez said Sanchez, who has trained 18 world champions, “doesn’t know what boxing is,” adding, “I find it strange that he considers himself a great trainer, but can’t distinguish between having technique and running.”

All hell broke loose when word came down that Alvarez had failed two drug tests as traces of clenbuterol, a performance-enhancing drug, were found in his system. Reps for Alvarez, who at the time was training in his native Mexico, claimed the positive test was a result of ingesting tainted meat. It’s a claim that’s actually plausible, as other athletes have used that defense, some successfully. But Team GGG wasn’t buying it. And they blasted away.

Sanchez went on the offensive, taking aim at Alvarez’s trainers, the father-son team of Eddy and the elder Jose "Chepo" Reynoso.

"I'm disappointed with the fact his people are meat cutters,” Sanchez said. “His people are meat market owners, they're butchers. I'm disappointed that they wouldn't talk to him about not ingesting meat in Mexico because it has been a problem. So just disappointment in that fact. Canelo should have been smarter than that too, but I blame more his people than him right now.”

Normally one to praise his opponent, Golovkin ripped Alvarez after learning of the positive test, saying, “When you get to this level, people should be watching the skills you muster from yourself, not wonder which laboratory you have.”

The icing on the cake came when GGG told reporters: “I eat Mexican food all the time and I’ve never had that problem.”

Then he took it up about five notches later in the month when he accused Alvarez of doping during their first fight, telling the Los Angeles Times that video and photographic evidence existed. “It was pretty obvious his muscles had visible injections,” said Golovkin.

Canelo took to Instagram to call Golovkin a “little bitch.”

After Alvarez was handed a sixth-month suspension, paving the way for the rematch to go down in September instead of Cinco de Mayo, the two sides went back to the table to hammer out a new agreement.

Alvarez reportedly received 70 percent of the revenue split from the first fight and Golovkin’s team wasn’t going to accept similar terms the second time around. After the original deadline passed without an agreement, the fight, according to Lofeller, was actually dead. An hour later, Golden Boy Promotions—Canelo’s promotion team—reversed course and met GGG’s demands, giving him a much larger share (reportedly 45 percent) of the revenue the second time around. The drama only exacerbated the bad feelings for GGG.

“It’s 100 percent emotional for me,” Golovkin said. “One hundred percent. I don’t know what it is for him. Right now, like the first fight, he has a lot of emotion. But when he went into the ring, he stepped back and only ran. Running. He only ran. He’s not like a warrior. He’s not like a Mexican fighter. Not like a true champion.”

With the fight just weeks away, Golovkin directed his anger away from Canelo and toward Team Alvarez for a change.

“Was I upset that Canelo failed two drug tests? Yes. But I was more upset at Canelo’s team,” GGG said. “The excuses they gave, their attitude, and Canelo’s reaction, it showed that they have no respect for the sport or the fans. They showed their real faces. They are fakes. I do not feel anger toward him because the rematch was canceled the first time. But I did lose all respect for him. Canelo is not the biggest name in boxing, just the biggest scandal.”

The 36-year-old Golovkin eventually took more shots at the 28-year-old Alvarez, writing in a blog post that Canelo­—a former world title holder—was just another fighter.

“There was nothing special about him in the first fight,” GGG wrote. “He did not fight Mexican Style like he promised. Over the last twelve months, Canelo has showed everyone his true self.”

Alvarez, meanwhile, was stewing during the final the weeks of training camp.

“I really don’t like [Golovkin],” Alvarez wrote in a blog post. “It’s personal, and I take it that way. It will make me train harder and give it the extra push to knock him out on September 15.”

Alvarez's promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, said he had “never seen Canelo so angry.”

"This fight is something different. This fight is personal,” said De La Hoya, the head of Golden Boy Promotions. “I've never seen Canelo so angry. He really wants to knock Golovkin out. As a promoter, I want to see him knock Golovkin out. This fight is every important for Mexican people. This is a Mexican date, and I'm excited we can bring fans an exciting and memorable event during Mexican Independence Day Weekend.”

De La Hoya caused a stir when he questioned how patriotic Golovkin, a native of Kazakhstan, really is, bringing an entirely new national anthem controversy to the world of sports.

“I can tell you one thing for instance. Talk about not supporting your own country? The Golovkin people didn’t want to sing the national anthems before the fight,” De La Hoya told Villainfy Media. “That’s a ritual. Having a national anthem before a championship fight is what you’re supposed to do. It makes it feel like a bigger event. Golovkin’s people didn’t want the Kazakhstan national anthem to be sang, the Mexican national anthem to be sung, the American national anthem to be sung. I mean what else are they going to demand? Jesus, are they going to cancel the fight? It's ridiculous Just go out there and fight!”

Team GGG was quick to shoot down De La Hoya’s claims.

“I have no idea what Oscar is talking about but it is not true,” GGG promoter Tom Loeffler said in a statement. “The truth is Team Golovkin had requested that the national anthems of Kazakhstan, Mexico and the United States be sung before the pay-per-view telecast began so that we could proceed with the fights seamlessly and uninterrupted. HBO supported this position and has always preferred that the anthems take place before the HBO Pay-Per-View telecast begins. To suggest that Gennady is unpatriotic and has no respect for the anthems of his Kazakhstan, Mexico or the U.S., where Gennady resides in southern California, is patently false. Oscar and Canelo owe Gennady yet another apology. This is just another example of why Gennady never believes anything from Canelo's side.”