Hall of Fame trainer Ignacio "Nacho" Beristain ruled out that it was age that affected Gennadiy Golovkin last Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Golovkin had his fair share of struggles and barely escaped the jaws of defeat, in winning a very close twelve round unanimous decision over Sergiy Derevyanchenko. The victory gave Golovkin the vacant IBF, IBO middleweight titles.

It was Golovkin's second fight with new head trainer Johnathon Banks. Golovkin was previously trained for several years by veteran coach Abel Sanchez of Big Bear, California.

In the opinion of Nacho, he believes Golovkin had a poor preparation coupled with a lack of communication and strategy by his coach, with whom he barely had his second fight.

Nacho states that this "new version" of Golovkin would lose, without question, in a third bout with Mexican superstar Canelo Alvarez.

"From what I saw he wasn't in condition. After he got hit with a hard hook to the liver, it's like he became activated - he began to release combinations, he was faster and doing damage, but then he fell back into that semi-slow style. For me he was lacking a corner... the change in trainers. They cannot say that it was his age, because I had veteran fighters like Daniel Zaragoza, and you had to give him longer sessions but with less of a load, and because of that he fought well... just ask Erik Morales," Nacho said to ESPN Deportes.

"What he needed was to light up, he needed stamina to defeat that kind of a fighter, he needed to work on switching his speed up. He is not fast, but he is strong and can punch, and now he's lacking because of a change, he was missing that spark.... it was sometimes very consistent with what the opponent did to him."