Gennady Golovkin believes his "historical fight" with Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez will be huge for both his legacy and the middleweight division as a whole.
'GGG' will take on the 27-year-old Mexican at the T-Mobile Arena as he marks his Las Vegas debut on September 16 with the IBF, WBC and WBO world titles at stake.
The hard-hitting Kazakh, unbeaten in 37 fights, says that the unification showdown will bring the division back to the dizzy heights of times gone by.
"I want to start and I want to win this fight because maybe for me this win will be like a history fight, like [Sugar Ray] Leonard against [Marvin] Hagler.
"The middleweight division will come back. 'Canelo' is a very special guy and for both us it's huge. Especially for me, this is huge.
"The story - in the middleweight division, it's a long story. I don't know, I remember a lot of great champions, like Carlos Monzon, Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler and Bernard Hopkins.
"Right now I think new stories, new times for us. So many stories are huge in the middleweight division. To be a champion is huge."