By Craig Daly: Bernard Hopkins is predicting Canelo Alvarez will inflict a terrible beat down on the 40-year-old Gennadiy Golovkin and end the fight suddenly with a “liver shot” between the fourth and seventh rounds on September 17th.

Golovkin was repeatedly hurt with body shots in his last fight against Ryota Murata last April.

While Hopkins isn’t saying that Golovkin (42-1-1, 37 KOs) is shot, it’s pretty clear from watching his last four fights that he has nothing left at this stage aside from his power.

Unfortunately, Golovkin’s hand speed and reflexes have deteriorated to the point where his power will be useless against the much quicker and defensively sound Canelo (57-2-2, 39 KOs).

You can argue the only reason Canelo is fighting Golovkin now rather than continuing to ignore him as he’d done in the last four years is that the Mexican star badly needs a win to redeem himself in the eyes of the boxing public after his loss to Dmitry Bivol on May 7th.

“First of all, GGG is taking this fight, and he’s always one punch away from re-booting his career,” said Bernard Hopkins to Little Giant Boxing. “He’s a puncher. That’s how he got there, and that’s how he got exposed by Canelo.

“It’s going to be interesting to see two guys that are a few years older and not as young as they were. I think there’s going to be more blows coming from both sides. I’m picking Canelo by stoppage by the sixth or seventh round,” continued Hopkins.

“I don’t see this being a fight that will be as exciting as the first two. I’m predicting Canelo will find his grove and then get a stoppage in the sixth or seventh round.

“It could be either one [body or head stoppage], but it looks like it will be a beat down [for Canelo over GGG]. I think it’ll be a liver shot, and that’s going to happen in the first four rounds.

“Canelo is a good body shot guy that wears you down, and then the head [of Golovkin] will be exposed to do what he wants to do. But that’s where it’ll start from.

“It’ll start from the bottom in bringing the head down. It will be a stoppage, but it’ll start from the body,” said Hopkins.