Canelo Álvarez v Gennady Golovkin III: undisputed super-middleweight championship – live!

Here’s a look at how Canelo and Golovkin measure up ahead of tonight’s main event. Golovkin still enjoys the slight advantage in height if not in reach. The key difference from their first two encounters is the contracted weight, which both met at yesterday’s weigh-in. The 40-year-old Kazakh is moving up to super-middleweight for the first time in his career, a division where Álvarez has proven more than comfortable since they last met four years ago.

Hello and welcome to the Las Vegas Strip for tonight’s third fight between Canelo Álvarez and Gennady Golovkin. We’re ringside at the T-Mobile Arena for a threequel four years in the making as two of the most accomplished fighters of their generation look to stamp a definitive conclusion on their highly caustic rivalry after 24 rounds that left so little to separate them.

Their first encounter, in 2017, was one of the most eagerly anticipated summit meetings of the decade and the rare superfight that managed to not only meet but exceed the hype. Until, that is, the decision. Most at ringside, in the crowd and watching at home believed the Kazakh knockout artist known as Triple G did enough to win on points. But the official verdict – including the mystifying score of 118-110 to Álvarez handed down by Adalaide Byrd – was a widely disputed split draw that denied Golovkin what should have been the defining moment of a career spent largely out of the mainstream spotlight.

Their second, in 2018, was closer, but ended in a majority-decision win for Álvarez after another 12 rounds where many thought Golovkin did no worse than a draw. That it came after Álvarez failed a pair of Wada-administered urine screenings for the banned substance clenbuterol, which the Mexican claimed was a result of contaminated meat consumed while training in Guadalajara, managed to further raise the temperature on their rancor.

A third bout always felt inevitable, but the fighters went their separate ways. Golovkin, who turned 40 in April, has fought only four times in the four years since, including wins over Sergiy Derevyanchenko and Ryōta Murata to win back a couple of belts at the middleweight division he’s lorded over for nearly a decade. Meanwhile, the 32-year-old Álvarez furthered his ascent as boxing’s biggest superstar, adding titles at super-middleweight and light-heavyweight before coming back down to unify all four belts at 168lbs in the span of a year: the very same undisputed championship that’s on the line tonight.

Of course, this is Golovkin’s first time fighting at 168lbs after a career spent at middleweight, which further tilts the odds in the younger, primer Mexican’s favor. But if Álvarez and Golovkin have proven nothing else in their two fights so far, they are born dance partners. And any time they share the prize-ring carries with it the promise of something very special.

It’s all little more than an hour and half away. Álvarez are Golovkin expected to make their ringwalks shortly after 8pm local time, 11pm ET and 4am BST.