Gennady Golovkin

Gennady Golovkin said he's not planning to retire from boxing after his trilogy fight against Canelo Alvarez in September.

"GGG," who turned 40 in April, told TMZ Sports in an interview released Thursday he'd even consider a fourth matchup against Alvarez.

"Not yet. I'm not ready yet," Golovkin said when asked about retirement. "... The business side [of continuing to fight], it's very interesting."

The Kazakhstani superstar has embarked on a long, decorated career. He won a gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics and has compiled a 42-1-1 record as a professional, with the only loss and draw both coming against Alvarez.

A victory in their third meeting would level the head-to-head series at 1-1-1, which would likely lead to calls for a rubber match between the high-profile duo.

It's unlikely there would be nearly as much interest in a fourth bout if Alvarez wins again, but the Mexican superstar is coming off just his second career loss (57-2-2) against WBA super light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol.

Golovkin addressed that defeat in an interview with Yahoo Sports' Kevin Iole on Tuesday.

"Canelo has shown he learns from his mistakes," he said. "He's not the kind of fighter who will make the same mistake twice. But at the same time, [the Alvarez-Bivol fight] needs to be analyzed."

Golovkin has won four straight fights, including an April knockout of Ryota Murata to win the WBA super middleweight title, since his loss to Alvarez in September 2018.

It sets the stage for what should be another highly competitive showdown that will be a chance for both fighters to make a major statement.

Canelo Alvarez will finish his trilogy against Gennady Golovkin before his rematch with Dmitry Bivol.

Alvarez confirmed he will honor his scheduled September fight against GGG during a press conference Monday. 

“We already had that contract, that deal, so we have to continue what we started," Alvarez said. "And I think they are the two most important fights in boxing–the fight with Golovkin and the rematch with Bivol because, unfortunately, we lost, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to try again.

“The important thing here is perseverance, and we are going to do it again. ... What is certain is that we will return in September, and these days—today, tomorrow, the day after—we are going to announce the fight, only we have to wait a little.”

The Alvarez-GGG fight was set up in advance of Canelo's upset loss to Bivol earlier this month. In the aftermath of that upset, there was some chatter that Alvarez would push back the GGG fight in favor of an immediate rematch against Bivol.

It appears that won't be the case.

Alvarez previously fought GGG to a draw in 2017 before defeating him via majority decision a year later. Both boxers had been building the hype for a rematch in the four years since, with GGG's fight against Ryota Murata and Alvarez's against Bivol seemingly being one final tune-up before they finished their trilogy.

Bivol had other ideas, using his size to work over the smaller Alvarez as they fought to the scorecards.

What is clear is that these are the two biggest remaining fights in boxing. However, if Canelo drops his bout against GGG in September, it's fair to wonder how much air it would take out of a Bivol rematch. 

Canelo Alvarez's ring resume isn't quite pristine.

He's been a professional boxer for more than half his life, with precisely two losses in 61 fights.

The first blemish came nearly nine years ago against imminent Hall of Famer Floyd Mayweather Jr. and is largely pardoned these days as simply too much, too soon for a 22-year-old kid.

And the second came Saturday night, when he was outboxed, outslugged, and comprehensively outworked by a big, talented, and determined light heavyweight in Dmitry Bivol.

It was jarring given the pound-for-pound ace's win percentage but just as easily excused given that a guy who'd debuted at 140 pounds was fighting one who'd never weighed in lighter than 173.

For a guy who values legacy, it was the price of greatness.

Or, in this case, of reaching for greatness.

Lest anyone forget, Alvarez had spent most of the past four years as a modern throwback to years past, when champions prioritized conquering new turf over simply protecting their own.

Already flush with middleweight jewelry, he defeated three titleholders at 168 pounds and another at 175—becoming Mexico's first undisputed champ and the sport's undisputed kingpin.

A win over Bivol, he said, would be the first step in yet another quest for undisputed status.

But the three 115-113 scores in his Russian foe's favor suggest something else.

It's time to finish old business before chasing anything else new.

Alvarez's two-fight series with Gennady Golovkin cemented his status as a pay-per-view star and kicked off the aforementioned stretch in which he conquered myriad champions across multiple weights.

Officially, he's 1-0-1 against Triple G, having won a majority decision and the boogeyman's middleweight title in 2018 after fighting him to a split draw a year earlier.

But more than a few folks disagree.

In fact, it's not hard to find fans and media members who'd score him down 0-2.

"At best, 1-1, perhaps 0-1-1. Very fortunate not to be 0-2," Randy Gordon, former editor of The Ring and current host of At The Fights on SiriusXM Radio, told Bleacher Report.

"I thought the draw belonged to GGG. I think that should have been a win for GGG.

"The win for Canelo in fight number two I could live with, but I can see how many thought GGG really won it, or should have pulled out a 114-114 draw, as Glenn Feldman had it."

Regardless of your lean, it's been every bit that close.

Five of six scorecards across two fights have been either 6-6 or 7-5—excluding Adelaide Byrd's laughable 10-2 in the opener—and neither man has been able to control the other for significant stretches.

They've boxed. They've brawled. They've been punished. They've been bloodied.

They've thrown more than 2,700 punches at one another and landed better than 800, with Alvarez holding a statistical advantage—albeit a slight one, 32.9 percent to 28.6—across 72 minutes.

It's the nip-and-tuck stuff that all-time rivalries are made of.

And the best news from Saturday night is that it's not done yet.

Or at least that it shouldn't be.

He wasn't about to admit it afterward, but Alvarez's loss to Bivol wasn't the product of bad judging or flawed timing. It was a bigger guy, with sound fundamentals, a good chin and zero jitters, employing a style that will bedevil him every time he sees it—be it in Las Vegas, Guadalajara or Moscow.

When Alvarez hit Caleb Plant, Billy Joe Saunders and Sergey Kovalev, they felt it.

But when he hit Bivol, Bivol hit him back twice.

A 152-84 margin in landed punches for the winner as a 5-to-1 underdog doesn't bode well for Alvarez with a Bivol who's more confident and even better prepared—meaning the rematch clause mentioned in Saturday's immediate aftermath is the last option promoter Eddie Hearn should suggest Sunday.

Especially considering a Golovkin trilogy was sketched out by the parties earlier this year.

And now that interim business is handled, they can enter the air reserved for the sport's most recognized pairs and guarantee they'll be prominently mentioned on each other's Hall of Fame plaques.

Heavyweights Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier laid much of the foundation for their respective legends over 41 rounds in the ring between 1971 and 1975, while welterweights Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran did the same across three fights of their own from 1980 to 1989.

The career arcs of Arturo Gatti and Micky Ward were defined, too, by their three apocalyptic fights across 13 months in 2002 and 2003, and Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez took it a step further, fighting four times across three weight divisions between 2004 and 2012.

In their aftermaths, it's impossible to think of one man without imagining the other.

And, when it comes to this one, what's a rivalry without some heat?

Golovkin is keenly aware of the standings with his high-profile nemesis and expressed frustration in a chat with Bleacher Report that his own prodigious accomplishments—holding a title every year since 2011, stopping 15 straight foes in title fights, etc.—were overshadowed by the first two bouts.

"I don't think that my rivalry with Canelo Alvarez is the only thing that characterizes my career," he said. "Just to point out a few things: I am the record-holder for the number of defenses—21 defenses. I have the biggest number of knockouts. And I think there are people who will remember me by that.

"There are people to whom it would matter more."

Matter a lot? Perhaps.

Matter more? No chance.

Though defeats of Kell Brook (TKO 5), Daniel Jacobs (UD 12) and David Lemieux (TKO 8) were menacing in spots and compelling throughout, none drew nor deserved the attention of the Alvarez fights.

And unless he delivers a clear victory in Act III, Golovkin gets the sort of forever second-place status that Frazier has with Ali after three fights and Tommy Hearns has with Ray Leonard after two.

Frazier and Hearns surely had spectacular moments, but their rivals' moments were both more frequent and memorable, giving them a permanent victory on the perception scorecard.

"It's a vital necessity for Triple G," former HBO blow-by-blow man Jim Lampley, who called several of both men's fights on the network, told Bleacher Report. "And since there won't be a fourth fight, the rivalry will end either as a standoff or as a triumph for Canelo."

It may be an unfair reality for a Hall-worthy competitor.

But when it comes to combat, if you're not first you're last.

When it comes to boxing, Canelo Alvarez doesn't want for much.

He turned pro as a teen, was a champion at 20 and has made more money across a decade-and-a-half in the ring than legends like Joe Louis, Ray Robinson or Muhammad Ali ever dreamed.

So it'd be natural to think—now 31 and with enough cash to support several generations—that the Mexican-born pound-for-pound ace would be content to rest on his laurels.

It'd also be wrong.

Rather than easing back and riding the mandatory defense train into a lucrative sunset, the undisputed king of the super middleweights is tilting at another weight-class windmill.

Alvarez will put his status as the sport's highest-profile star on the line this weekend in Las Vegas, where he'll face unbeaten Dmitry Bivol for the Russian's WBA light heavyweight title belt.

It's the second venture into 175-pound territory for Alvarez, who KO'd then-WBO champ Sergey Kovalev in 2019 but abdicated the throne to gather belts at 168. He finished that task with punishing KOs of Billy Joe Saunders and Caleb Plant across six months in 2021 and already has a date with two-time middleweight foe Gennady Golovkin penciled in later this year to put a trilogy stamp on their rivalry.

But first it's Bivol.

And, to Alvarez at least, the motivation translates to a single word.

Legacy.

"I love boxing. And I want to accomplish all the things I can in boxing," he told Bleacher Report. "The best things—fight the best, fight all the champions, different weight classes.

"For me, my legacy is important."

Always has been, in fact.

It's a product of the mindset forged across a career-long partnership with trainers Eddy and Chepo Reynoso, who've been in the corner for every step on a path that's seen him grow—literally—from a skinny 140-pound 15-year-old to the muscular physique he's morphed into at 168 and 175.

He had his 34th pro bout a week before his 20th birthday and snatched his first belt at 154 pounds three fights and eight months later, defeating Matthew Hatton by unanimous decision in March 2011.

And the quest for greatness was officially on.

"Everything comes because of the people around me," he said. "You never know what is going to happen but if you work hard and keep in the gym and stay disciplined, things come.

"Things come together. When you love something the things come together. We never knew this was going to happen and we were going to do this and this and this. But it's all come together."

That first title bout aired on HBO's second-tier Boxing After Dark program, but the network's longtime blow-by-blow man, Jim Lampley, got the chance to call several of the evolving phenom's fights on World Championship Boxing shows and remains impressed by where he's come from where he was.

"Far more cosmic and multi-talented than I at first envisioned," Lampley told Bleacher Report.

"And you can say exactly the same thing in exactly the same terms about Eddy Reynoso. Chicken/egg. Both about as good as it gets. Counterpuncher by origin nature becomes indomitable attacker when he wants to be? Fewer than a dozen in history of boxing. A superstar with epic historic impact."

He unified and defended titles six times over the subsequent months before making the one mistake of his career—or at least doing the one thing he says now that he'd change—fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr.

The two met in September 2013 when Alvarez, though a veteran of 43 fights, was still just 23 and hadn't been in an event that large, let alone against an opponent as good as Mayweather, even at 36. The older man befuddled him over 12 rounds, winning a majority decision that still stands as his only loss.

His then-promoter Oscar De La Hoya told Bleacher Report he advised Alvarez against taking the match, and Alvarez himself said the outcome might have been different had it occurred a bit later.

"I'm good with my career. But maybe the fight with Mayweather could have waited a little longer, when I got more experience and more fights on the biggest stages," he said. "Maybe that one. I think it could have been better for me. But I learned from that fight, too. So everything is in the correct time."

Indeed, he was a middleweight champion after defeating Miguel Cotto four fights after Mayweather and ultimately tamed—or at least held at bay—the boogeyman that was a then-unbeaten Golovkin, going 12 rounds for a split-decision draw in 2017 before returning exactly 364 days later to win a majority nod.

The aforementioned titles at super middleweight and light heavyweight have followed as part of a post-Golovkin run, in which Alvarez has won five of seven fights by KO while battling foes weighing anywhere from 160 to 175 pounds. He fought at 160 for the final time while defeating Daniel Jacobs in fight two of the series and a career-high 174.5 in beating Kovalev, who'd arrived with 29 KOs in 34 wins.

And assuming he beats Bivol to regain a piece of the action at 175, he may stay a while.

"They were asking me before, on the road to becoming undisputed champion at 168, 'If you accomplish this, what else is out there?'" he said. "You never know. Things always come around. There's always something right there. Right now I'm going to fight at 175 for the world title, so in my mind maybe why not be undisputed at 175? We'll see."

Artur Beterbiev is 17-0 with 17 KOs and holds the IBF and WBC belts in the weight class. He's scheduled to fight WBO champion Joe Smith Jr., whom Bivol beat in 2019, next month at Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden.

Smith is 28-3 with 22 KOs.

As for Bivol, he's 19-0 has 11 KOs, but isn't perceived as nearly the power-puncher that Beterbiev and Smith are. In fact, he's gone the 12-round distance six straight times after scoring all his KOs in his first 13 career fights.

"He's a great fighter," Alvarez said.

"He's a solid champ at 175. Undefeated. He's a great boxer. He knows what to do in the ring. He's a beast and he's fast for his weight class. He's a really good fighter with a lot of experience."

Nevertheless, Alvarez is a significant favorite with the oddsmakers at DraftKings, who've installed him as a -475 pick (bet $475 to win $100) while Bivol is a +350 underdog (bet $100 to win $350).

Should those numbers hold out, and assuming a second Golovkin win in September, too, there'll be even more legacy talk for Alvarez—specifically about where he fits when it comes to all-time discussions.

But it's all premature, he said, because there's six or seven years left to build the resume, and he won't spend any sleepless nights thinking about it anyway.

"It doesn't matter for me where they put me," he said.

"I just work hard, fight hard and fight the best. And that's it."