Canelo headed for wrist surgery after soundly defeating GGG despite the injury

Alvarez says he won't return until at least May, maybe not until next September

A note to Fight Freaks Unite readers: I created Fight Freaks Unite in January 2021 and eight months later it also became available for paid subscriptions for additional content — and as a way to help keep this newsletter going and for readers to support independent journalism. If you haven’t upgraded to a paid subscription please consider it. If you have already, I truly appreciate it! Also, consider a gift subscription for the Fight Freak in your life.

LAS VEGAS — For the first time in the trilogy between Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin there was no doubt about the rightful winner after two previous controversial decisions, a draw in 2017 and an Alvarez majority decision win in 2018.

But what made Alvarez’s clear unanimous decision even more impressive on Saturday night, even if the fight was nowhere near as crowd pleasing as their first two, is that he did it with a damaged left wrist that he said will require surgery.

Alvarez retained the undisputed super middleweight world title at T-Mobile Arena, site of all three bouts of the trilogy, by scores of 116-112, 115-113 and 115-113 — way too close in the view of most — and at his post-fight news conference said his wrist has been giving him problems since an 11th-round knockout of Caleb Plant in November to unify the four major belts at 168 pounds to become the first undisputed champion in division history.

“Hurts everywhere, everywhere,” Alvarez said of his left wrist during his post-fight news conference. “I had these issues since the Caleb Plant fight. (I said) ‘Ah, it’s OK. It’s OK. Let it (go). Let it (go).’ And then I felt really bad. I need surgery.”