Sergey Kovalev at the weekend recounted a couple of occasions when he was in person at Golovkin vs Canelo sparring sessions in Big Bear, California.
At an open media question and answers session this past weekend current light-heavyweight division knockout artist Sergey Kovalev gave a brief insight to members of the media about a few occasions he was present, not giving too much away but still not enough to grab fight fans’ interest.
He could not recall exactly when it was, saying it was either “2011 or 2012” which either way is a four or five years back, which would have made Canelo aged 21 or 22 and definitely before he fight Floyd Mayweather (2013) – with Golovkin been around 29 or 30 at the time.
Speaking on what he saw Kovalev said of the Golovkin vs Canelo sparring match:
“I lived in Big Bear lake for one and a half year and I sparred with Gennady a lot of times and I saw when they (Golovkin and Canelo) sparred each other. They was like 50-50, Canelo looked very good with Gennady.”
He went on to mention how the training was at high altitude and that he saw the pair spar on three to four occasions in total.
When pressed about who actually won or got the better of the spar, Kovalev as humble as ever, refused to pick sides mentioning that it was: “50-50”.
What is of interest though was his initial recount of the sparring where he said Canelo did “very good” with Golovkin – considering this would have been a fairly young Canelo at the time.
The Mexican defeated Englishman Liam Smith this past weekend for the WBO junior-middleweight title in Dallas, Texas and looked in excellent form it must be said.
Although Smith gave a great account of himself and tagged Canelo on occasion with some good shots, Canelo looked in control for the majority of the bout and displayed solid improvement I thought, really putting his shots to body and head together well.
The body punches in particular looking extremely sharp.
Since the win, calls once again for the Golovkin fight have come flying out of every corner of the boxing universe with the bout currently being thought to be planned for next September (2017).
