By Sean Jones: Gennadiy Golovkin is lifting weights as part of his bulking up for his trilogy fight against Canelo Alvarez for their clash at super middleweight on September 17th on DAZN pay-per-view.

Canelo will be defending his undisputed 168-lb championship, which he won last year after beating a handful of weak paper champions from Europe & the U.S Although Canelo has collected all four titles at 168, he’s a champion in name only.

It’s critical that Golovkin (42-1-1, 37 KOs) needs to add size to his 5’10” to match the weight that Canelo (57-2-2, 39 KOs) has put on in the last four years since their last fight.

With the trilogy match being staged at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Golovkin, 40, obviously that he’s going to need to potentially take the judges out of play for him to have a shot at beating Canelo

It’s going to be interesting to see how much stronger Golovkin will be in going up to 168 and not having to battle hard to make the 160-lb limit as he’s had throughout his career.

Golovkin could be a lot stronger going up to 168 because he won’t need to drain himself during fight week to make weight. We’ve never seen Golovkin fight at the full weight for the super middleweight division, and it could be a real eye-opener in how much improved he looks.

“Yeah, I feel GGG is a really strong fighter. The only reason I didn’t like his last fight [against Ryota Murata in April], but he probably left the week of. Going all the way to Japan f*** you up because of a different time zone. Yeah, the elevation too. That’s why he looked bad, but it’s also kind of good,” said David Benavidez to Fighthype when asked if he thinks Golovkin can beat Canelo Alvarez in their trilogy.

🦾⚙️ pic.twitter.com/ank32Typtr

— Gennadiy Golovkin (@GGGBoxing) August 3, 2022

“People think he’s washed up. So, I feel like he’s going to look amazing in this fight. It’s going to be a good fight. I love both fights, one and two, so I’m definitely going to be watching three too.

“He’s training up at Big Bear and doing great. All the reports I get from his training camp is he’s doing really well,” said promoter Tom Loeffler to K.O. Artist Sports about Golovkin and his training for the third fight against Canelo.

“He just turned 40, but out of anyone that is 40 years old, he’s still at the highest level of the sport,” Loeffler continued about GGG. “You saw what he did with Murata, who was a world champion himself.

“Flying to Tokyo to unify the titles over there, and GGG came out with the knockout. This fight [with Canelo] is at 168 on September 17th back in Las Vegas. We can’t seem to fight Canelo outside of Las Vegas. Hopefully, the judges are a little more fair this time when they score some of those close rounds.

“It’s a big fight, one of the biggest fights in the sport of boxing. It’s probably the biggest here in the U.S so far. We’re really looking forward to a show like that.

“It started out with a minus two rounds deficit,” said Loeffler about Canelo’s recent fight against WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol.

“I saw the judges gave all four first rounds to Canelo, and I thought Bivol won two if not three of the first four rounds. But that’s one of those things. It’s a Canelo phenomenon.

“I never thought Canelo would lose a decision in Las Vegas, but Bivol proved me wrong. Hats off to him. He’s a solid fighter in his own right. 15 pounds heavier than when GGG fought Canelo, but now at 168, I think we’ll see GGG even stronger than he was at 160 pounds. Either way, I think it’s going to be a great fight.

“It was surprising to me because you would think with those decisions Canelo got [against Golovkin in their previous two fights] and after being suspended for two tests, you would think GGG would be Canelo’s best friend.

“In the first fight, getting a 10-2 score when most people thought, including HBO, that GGG won eight to four [8-4]. In the second fight, most people thought it was a draw or leaning toward GGG, and then Canelo got his titles,” said Loeffler when asked about Canelo being angry at Golovkin during their two-city press tour for their trilogy fight.

“Somehow, he’s angry at Gennadiy. So you know, Gennadiy is like, ‘Look, this is a big fight. I’m just coming to win.’ If he [Golovkin] can win the trilogy, then all of a sudden it erases everything that happened in the first two fights.

“That would be huge for the sport of boxing. It’s not going to be easy for sure, but if you look at those first two fights, they were very competitive fights. Both guys fought at a very high IQ. Regardless of who people thought won. Naturally, I thought Gennadiy won both of those fights.

“It’s one of those things. It was very competitive. The great thing about Canelo and GGG is they both bring their own global fan bases. They both sell a lot of tickets, and both get a lot of ratings. This one will be on pay-per-view, so there will be a lot of pay-per-view sales.

“We’re still looking at the trilogy to be one of the most exciting trilogies out there. Especially because originally, it was going to be like, GGG is 40, and Canelo is towards the peak of his career. Then Canelo loses to Bivol, and GGG beats Murata.

“Now people think, ‘This is a much closer right than we thought before’ because of those two fights. We’re excited about that fight. A fourth fight clause?” said Loeffler when asked if there’s a rematch clause for the Canelo vs. Golovkin trilogy.

“Yeah, I’ll leave that to those guys [Canelo & GGG] to discuss. So, we’re just here to talk about the fight. I don’t want to go into too many of the details about the negotiations.

“GGG kept knocking everybody out,” said Loeffler about the early days of him promoting Golovkin. “He made my job much easier outside, promoting, marketing, building him up when nobody really knew who he was.

“He was up there training at Big Bear already, but nobody knew who he was because he had fought in Germany. He had the amateur career in Kazakhstan, a great amateur career.

“Then we were pressing HBO, Showtime, and all the networks, and HBO finally gave him the shot. Like I said, as long as he kept knocking guys out, we were doing everything. Taking him on the tours to Mexico, to Dallas,  to the Cowboy’s Stadium, to the Nascar races. Anywhere we could take him.

“To the hockey games, Laker games, wherever it was, and to the Dodger games. He threw out the first pitch at the Dodger’s games three times and at Yankees Stadium three times. So he probably has done the first three pitches of any boxer.

“I do know one thing about GGG; I’d say he’s the only active boxer, the only recent boxer to have sold out an arena at Madison Square Garden, sold out the T-Mobile in Las Vegas, sold out The Forum and Stub Hub in LA, sold out the O2 Arena in London.

“He [Golovkin] sold out the Saitama Arena in Tokyo and actually sold out the Monte Carlo arena. When you have that many places on your resume, that’s the definition of a global superstar,” said Loeffler about Golovkin.