Abel Sanchez, the former trainer of Gennadiy Golovkin, is worried that his former student will get seriously hurt in a likely trilogy fight with Mexican superstar Canelo Alvarez.

Sanchez trained Golovkin for nearly a decade. He had a bad falling out with the boxer in 2019, after the two were unable to agree on the financial terms to continue their relationship.

Golovkin is now trained by former fighter Johnathon Banks.

Golovkin and Canelo fought to a controversial twelve round split draw in September 2017.

They had a rematch a year later, with Canelo winning a close twelve round majority decision to hand Golovkin his first career defeat.

Golovkin, now 38-years-old, took a lot of punishment in winning a close twelve round decision over Sergey Derevyanchenko in October of last year.

Canelo on the other hand, is in his prime at 28-years-old. Last November, the boxer moved up by two full weight divisions to score a knockout victory over Sergey Kovalev to capture the WBO light heavyweight title.

He has since dropped the WBO title and planned to fight WBO super middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders in May, but the contest was postponed due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

There is a deal in place for Canelo to face Golovkin on September 12 - and Sanchez believes GGG could take serious damage this time around.

"This one maybe will hurt. Not because I’m not with him, but [this time it could] hurt because he gets hurt. [The trilogy is] not only the most significant, it’s the most dangerous because you’re talking about a guy who is at his peak now and believes he can do the same thing to Gennadiy that he did to Kovalev," Sanchez explained to The Athletic's Pug and Copp podcast.

"[Canelo] baited, baited, baited and waited for that right moment and it was destructive. I would hate to see Gennadiy go into that fight... or I would rather not see the fight than to see Gennadiy succumb to something like that, not being prepared physically and mentally."