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The final fight of the Canelo vs. GGG trilogy is officially on.
Canelo Álvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin will square off for a third time on Sept. 17. Both fighters confirmed the news in tweets on Tuesday.
The announcement comes after Álvarez had confirmed Monday that an agreement was already in place for a third bout between him and Golovkin. The 31-year-old was expected to exercise his rematch clause to face Dmitry Bivol in September, but instead opted into another fight with GGG.
“We already had that contract [with Gennadiy Golovkin], that agreement, so we have to continue what we started, and I think those are the two biggest fights in boxing, the fight with Golovkin and the rematch with Bivol,” Álvarez said Monday at his golf invitational in Naucalpan, Mexico, per ESPN’s Mike Coppinger. “Unfortunately, we lost, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try again.
“The important thing here is perseverance and we’re going to do it again. What is certain is that we are going to return in September.”
Álvarez lost shockingly by unanimous decision to Bivol on May 7, despite coming into the fight as a 4-to-1 favorite. He then had 30 days to decide between two options for a Sept. 17 fight, according to ESPN: a rematch with Bivol or a third with Golovkin.
Álvarez opted into the latter, setting up a highly anticipated third bout between the fighters at 168 pounds. The two have fought twice before, with a 2017 fight for the unified middleweight championship ending in a controversial split draw. Álvarez won the rematch a year later by majority decision.
To this day, the loss remains the only career defeat for Golovkin, who recently defeated Japan’s Ryōta Murata in April. At 40 years old, the 2004 Olympic silver medalist will try to rebound from the result of the second bout in his first fight ever at 168 pounds.
“I am comfortable knowing I won those fights,” Golovkin told ESPN in March. “I do not look back at the decisions. … I thought I won the first two, so winning the third one would be the same to me.”
