Alvarez, Golovkin not leaning on history in trilogy finale

SAN DIEGO: Although four years are an eternity in sports, Canelo Alvarez still remembers every round of his two fights with Gennady Golovkin. He recalls every tactical decision and momentum shift during those now-distant meetings with arguably his greatest rival.

But as he prepares for their third meeting in Las Vegas, Alvarez doesn't plan to call on those memories very much. Four years to the weekend after they last met, Canelo doesn't think there's much to be gained from preparing to fight a boxing memory.

What's more, he believes Golovkin will scarcely recognize what he sees in the ring Saturday night.

“I think he’s going to be surprised how much I’ve improved,” Alvarez told The Associated Press near his home in San Diego. ”My strength, my resistance, everything has improved. I think maybe he doesn’t realize this is going to be a different fight. I’ve been working hard the whole time.”

Golovkin feels much the same way about a matchup that could turn out to define the careers of two of of the greatest boxers of their generation, particularly if Golovkin pulls an upset. They fought to a hotly disputed draw in 2017 and to an equally debatable majority-decision victory for Alvarez in 2018, but Golovkin said his power and tenacity have only grown in the interim — and he also expects to benefit from moving up to super middleweight.

“We’re in different times now, and that’s a lot of time since the last fight,” Golovkin told the AP through an interpreter. “It's going to be very different. Not only just four years, but we’ve lived through the pandemic, which was very tough. It’s like an entire Olympic cycle, but even more.”

Since they last met, both fighters’ trainers say they’ve made fundamental changes to the ways