Canelo vs Golovkin: It will start cagey, until both boxers recall their fondness for leaving men unconscious

Steve Bunce has billed it as the potential Fight of the Decade, but punters may have to wait a few rounds to see these two powerhouses collide

Steve Bunce is predicting Canelo to edge it... but not with any confidence (Getty)

It is time to forget the technical talk, the pile of glittering baubles as a prize, the endless clamour to make this some type of night of salvation for the sport of boxing and it is time to just enjoy two men getting in the ring for a fight.

On Saturday night in Las Vegas in front of an emotional crowd that has been filling the city all week both Saul Alvarez, known as Canelo, and Gennady Golovkin, known as GGG, will have to fight at some point when they each realise tactics and planning are seldom factors in great fights. “They will just have to do what they do best, and that is fight,” predicted Bernard Hopkins, a middleweight world champion for a decade.

The pair are middleweights, there are several world championship belts on sale in the ring, they fight just a few weeks after the Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor sideshow, they each have brilliant tacticians lurking in their corners and nothing will matter once that bell echoes in the fabulous T-Mobile Arena. It's a fight that will force a silence over a city in love for 50 years now with the boxing game.

Golovkin is the champion, Alvarez has been the champion, one is naturally smaller, one naturally bigger and in a combined total of 88 fights the pair have just the one blemish. Alvarez lost on points to Floyd Mayweather in 2013, a subdued and strange performance. Golovkin has the perfect record of 37 wins, 33 quick, including 19 consecutive world title wins, 18 of which ended quick. Alvarez is the glitzy attraction, a Mexican idol, a red-haired pin-up with boxing's grandmaster of crossover appeal Oscar De La Hoya as his promoter. Having interviewed both Golovkin and Alvarez many times over the last decade or so I can safely say that the pair have the coldest eyes, the most chilling of appearances, when they are each trying to relax and something very disturbing about the way they act in the ring.

There is a picture of Alvarez on one knee at Amir Khan's side last summer when a perfect right cross dropped poor Amir for a lengthy count. Alvarez is there, tender, concerned, his glove touching Khan's chest and all of this after he had finally, five rounds down, found the punch he was looking for to leave Khan unconscious.

In Golovkin fights there are those awful moments when his opponents can be heard suffering, letting out little screams as the Kazak maestro drills in short punches to the body and sickening hooks to the jaw. “It felt like I was giving birth, that's how bad the pain was and he was just there with his little smile, throwing more punches,” said Martin Murray from St.Helens, who survived until round 11 in a title fight against Golovkin in 2015.

Golovkin comes in as the undefeated champion (Getty)

There are dozens of similar testimonies from men that fell short against the pair, rare endorsements from beaten fighters in statements often given in awe at what they were forced to endure. The very best fighters always leave their victims with questions they can never fully answer and I have often sat with men trying to explain what went wrong.

Canelo is promoted by the charismatic Oscar De La Hoya (Getty)

In London two months ago Alvarez laughed, which is more like a dismissive chortle, when asked what he was going to do about Golovkin's proven power. “First, I'm not going to just stand there and second, let's see what he does about my power,” Alvarez said. There appears to be very little consideration for Alvarez's ability to leave men out cold and far too much emphasis on Golovkin's stoppage wins; Golovkin has been tremendously disrespectful in some fights, dismissive of the men in front of him and bored. The Alvarez defeat to Mayweather, which was not painful but was soul-destroying at times, was clearly the best thing to ever happen to the boy fighter and he is a much better boxer now.

Golovkin will need more than his power when the bell sounds and Alvarez will need all of his power in a fight that is delicately poised and could certainly start off at a slow pace. The crowd in Las Vegas might even boo the early negativity before, as Hopkins said, they each have to fight. It is a hard prediction to make with confidence, but I just edge towards Alvarez knowing enough to win a tight fight, a fight rich with moments of brilliance and a fight worth billing as the Fight of the Decade.