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No other site could have been more appropriate for the final leg of the Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez-Gennadiy Golovkin trilogy.
Matchroom Boxing revealed the sport’s worst-kept secret on Tuesday, confirming that the third bout between Alvarez and Golovkin will land at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The DAZN Pay-Per-View main event will take place September 17, five years almost to the day of their September 2017 and four years from their September 2018 rematch at this very location.
The first two fights generated live gates of $27,059,850 and $ 23,473,500, respectively.
Tickets will be available for pre-sale beginning Friday, which will coincide with a press conference in the greater Los Angeles area to formally announce the event. A second presser will be held Monday in New York City, by which time tickets will be on sale to the general public via axs.com.
Guadalajara’s Alvarez (57-2-2, 39KOs) has fought at T-Mobile Arena more than any other boxer, headlining at the venue for the seventh time. The site also hosted his most recent bout, a twelve-round, unanimous decision defeat to Dmitry Bivol (20-0, 11KOs) in a failed WBA light heavyweight title bid this past May 7 on DAZN PPV.
Despite the loss, Alvarez retained his undisputed WBA/WBC/IBF/WBO super middleweight championship that will be at stake versus Kazakhstan’s Golovkin (42-1-1, 37KOs), the reigning WBA/IBF middleweight titlist who will move up in weight.
The trilogy clash will be the first of the series to not take place at middleweight.
Golovkin entered their September 2017 fight as the undefeated WBC/WBA/IBF champion, while Alvarez was the lineal champ. Their superlight ended in a questionable twelve-round draw, with most observers believing Golovkin deserved the nod. Judge Dave Moretti (115-113, Golovkin) turned in the only scorecard out of six during their two-fight set to rule in favor of Golovkin. Adalaide Byrd drew well-deserved, industry-wide scorn for her outrageous scorecard of 118-110 for Alvarez, while Don Trella (114-114) had it even to produce the split decision draw.
The rematch was delayed after Alvarez was hit with a six-month suspension after testing positive for Clenbuterol ahead of a planned May 2018 sequel. A four-month delay put the rematch exactly 52 weeks out from its predecessor, with Alvarez taking a twelve-round, majority decision in his fourth appearance at T-Mobile at the time.
Alvarez returned twice more, outpointing Daniel Jacobs in their May 2019 three-belt middleweight clash and the aforementioned loss to Bivol. In between has come wins at super middleweight, light heavyweight and back at super middleweight where he became the division’s first-ever undisputed champion following an eleventh-round knockout of Caleb Plant last November at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
Overall, the event will mark Alvarez’s sixteenth career appearance in Las Vegas.
Golovkin has not fought at T-Mobile or anywhere else in Vegas other than his two fights with Alvarez, which represent the lone blemishes on his record. The career-long middleweight is 4-0 since the disputed loss to Alvarez in their rematch, having since regained the IBF and WBA middleweight titles in separate wins over Sergiy Derevyanchenko and Ryota Murata. Golovkin hit the road for a ninth-round knockout win over Murata in their WBA/IBF middleweight title unification bout on April 9 in Saitama, Japan.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox