Ahead of the Gennady Golovkin vs Canelo Alvarez rematch on September 15th one man who knows just how hard Canelo hits is Liverpool’s Liam Smith.

Former world champion Liam Smith gave it everything against Canelo Alvarez a couple of years back in Texas in a brave display.

But one that ultimately was stopped with a pin point body shot from the Mexican boxing star in the end.

Speaking to BT Sport, Smith said:

“He hit me right in the spot where you finish people. It’s one of them where I just had to bite the bullet and say – good shot.”

On his punching power he noted:

“He didn’t hit as hard as I expected but he was better than I expected.”

He added:

“He opened me up and found more gaps than just one gear like from Mungia. Mungia just tried to punch right through my guard.”

On Canelo compared to Mungia, he added:

“Canelo was a lot better at opening me up and finding more gaps.”

Canelo has shown many different sides to his game over the years and it will be interesting to see what kind of game plan he goes for against Golovkin in the rematch.

A lot has been mentioned about ‘GGG’ needing to use body shots second time round, but the same can be said for Canelo if he wants to slow Golovkin down too.