Boxers Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez on Tuesday ahead of their Sept. 15 rematch "conducted a low-key satellite news conference" on Facebook Live that had "all the energy of a trigonometry lecture," according to Dan Rafael of ESPN.com. This was no "overblown media conference with all the bell and whistles." Alvarez and his promoter, Golden Boy Promotions' Oscar De La Hoya, were at Alvarez' gym in Guadalajara, Mexico, while Golovkin and his promoter Tom Loeffler were stationed at a gym in Big Bear Lake, Calif. ESPN Deportes commentator Mauricio Pedroza "peppered everyone with questions" from an L.A. studio in a "valiant effort to get everyone fired up." But "based on the disinterest level displayed by GGG and Canelo, it's going to be a long two months until the fight because neither had much to say." Only the "feisty" Abel Sanchez, Golovkin's trainer, "tried to get under Alvarez's skin by continuing to accuse him of running from Golovkin in the fight last fall" (ESPN.com, 7/3). YAHOO SPORTS' Kevin Iole noted Golden Boy used Facebook technology to stream the news conference "designed to kick off ticket sales" for the rematch at T-Mobile Arena. Both fighters "largely stared forward stone-faced, had little to say and what they did say was non-threatening." The result was an hour that "probably did precious little to hawk ticket sales, which is normally the point." Promoters "clearly were hoping for fireworks," but the split screen "failed to show the fighters sneering at each other, staring nose-to-nose, and it had precious little in the way of aggressive talk" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 7/5).
