- Canelo Alvarez’s odds against Gennady Golovkin in their trilogy bout have shortened further.
- Alvarez was listed at -410 odds when the betting lines re-opened last month. He is now up to -500 on the latest BetOnline odds board.
- Golovkin is currently listed at +350 odds, easily the longest of his professional boxing career.
The third fight between Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin is fast approaching. However, oddsmakers don’t think it will be as good as the first two bouts.
Online sportsbook BetOnline currently has Alvarez listed at -500 odds, giving him an implied probability of 83.33% to win the bout. Meanwhile, Golovkin is listed at +350 odds, the longest of his professional boxing career, or a 22.22% implied probability to win.
The current odds are the shortest for Canelo since a third bout was proposed. As stated earlier, Golovkin’s latest odds are the worst ever since he turned professional in 2006.
Canelo opened as the -300 odds-on favorite to beat Golovkin when a third bout between the two was first discussed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. At that point, Golovkin was still priced at +250. Last May, when it was rumored that the two could be fighting for the third time this September, the best boxing sportsbook re-opened Alvarez at -410 odds with Golovkin coming back at +290. When the trilogy bout was made official in June, Canelo was still at -410 via Caesars Sportsbook but Golovkin dropped to +310. With the odds changing again in Canelo’s favor, Golovkin should enter next month’s bout with his longest betting odds ever.
Triple G opened as the -170 betting favorite in the first bout between the two in September 2017. The Kazakh god of war went on to close at a shorter -200 price while Alvarez entered the ring at +200 odds after opening at +140. That bout ended in a draw although many felt Golovkin did enough to win. Despite losing the first bout, Golovkin still opened as the -175 favorite to beat Alvarez in a rematch, with the Mexican coming back at +150 odds. On fight night, Triple G was at -210 odds and Canelo at +175. Alvarez won the rematch via majority decision in another closely fought contest between the two superstars. However, a lot has changed since the two last fought.
First off, it will already be four years since that rematch when they meet again on September 17th and Golovkin is now 40 years old. Although he is 4-0 with three knockout wins since that defeat, Golovkin has looked much slower and more hittable in the last couple of years. No question that the power is still there, but Golovkin is no longer the feared monster he once was. Not at this age and not with his reflexes reflecting his age.
Aside from the factors related to Golovkin, Canelo is coming off a stunning upset loss to Dmitry Bivol last May. The loss was only the second in Canelo’s illustrious career and only his first since he was completely outboxed by Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013. Bivol entered the fight as the +400 betting underdog but proved that at his weight class, Alvarez is no more than a title challenger.
But the Golovkin trilogy bout will be fought at super middleweight, the weight class that Alvarez unified to become its first-ever undisputed champion. Golovkin has not fought in a weight class other than middleweight and it will be interesting to see what the old ( older ? ) man does with the extra weight against an opponent in his prime and fighting at his own weight class.
It won’t be surprising to see Canelo’s odds further shorten in the coming weeks when the bulk of the betting money arrives. Forget that loss to Bivol, that was likely just a blip on the radar. Canelo is 32 years old and at the peak of his powers. He is coming off his first loss since 2013 and will without a doubt look for a big performance to bounce back. Golovkin has a legit claim when he says he won their first bout. But it’s hard to see him replicating that performance five years later.
