GGG's career tedders in the balance ahead of his third fight with Canelo Alvarez

September 17^th will be a monumental night in the career of Gennady Golovkin (42-1-1, 37 KOs) as he faces Canelo Alvarez (57-2-2, 39 KOs) for the third time at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas Nevada.

GGG will either win the biggest fight of his career, or his career as a significant fighter will come to an end with a loss.

Of course, Golovkin and many boxing fans feel that he’s already defeated Alvarez as there’s been nonstop debate as to who won their previous fights.

GGG’s legacy greatly impacted by Canelo Alvarez

Boxing: Alvarez vs Golovkin 2 — Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

In their first encounter on September 16th, 2017, the two men fought to a disputed draw (118–110 Alvarez, 115–113 Golovkin, and 114–114) despite the fact that Golovkin pressed the action for most of the fight.

In their second fight on September 15th, 2018, Alvarez came away with a majority decision victory (115-113 Alvarez, 114-114, 115-113 Alvarez) and in the process took Golovkin’s WBC, WBA, and IBO middleweight titles.

Despite GGG being the champion in those two fights, Alvarez got the benefit of winning the close rounds on the judges’ scorecards because he’s the younger fighter and the biggest name in boxing. Unfortunately, that’s how the politics of boxing works.

Golovkin has been the most dominant middleweight of his era but has yet to have a signature win over a future Hall of Fame fighter. Of course this is not his fault as earlier in his career he tried to secure fights with middleweight champions Sergio Martinez and Miguel Cotto, but those fights never came to fruition.

To date the biggest win of Golovkin’s career is his unanimous decision victory over Danny Jacobs in March of 2017.

Golovkin’s final chance?

After four years, Golovkin finally gets another chance to notch the biggest win of his career as he looks to take all of Alvarez’s super-middleweight titles (WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO).

However, at 40 years old and fighting at a heavier weight, few are giving GGG a chance to finally get a win against his biggest rival. Since his loss to Alvarez, Golovkin has won all of his four fights, but he seldom resembled the fighter he was from 2008 to 2016 when he won 23 consecutive fights by knockout.

He’ll also be facing a highly motivated Alvarez who is looking to rebound after a unanimous decision loss to Dmitry Bivol in May when he challenged Bivol for his WBA light heavyweight title.

If Golovkin is able to overcome the odds and defeat Alvarez he’ll finally have a signature career-defining win, and his legacy will be cemented. But if he loses again, it’s hard to envision GGG in another huge fight, and it might serve him best to retire.