Canelo-Golovkin judge to be given a rest break

Boxingnews24.com

By Sean Jones: The Nevada State Athletic Commission executive director Bob Bennett says the judge that scored last Saturday’s fight between Saul Canelo Alvarez and Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in favor or Canelo by a 118-110 score will be given a “small break” for her to “catch her breath.”

The judge, Adalaide Byrd, scored the fight 10 rounds to 2 in Canelo Alvarez’s favor. Needless to say, the score was absolutely shocking, considering that Golovkin appeared to win the fight by 8 rounds to 4 against an exhausted Canelo.

“I’m not going to put her right back in,” Bennett said. “She’ll still be in the business … but she needs to catch her breath.”

Bennett didn’t say anything about wanting to give a rest break to the judge that scored it 114-114. It would seem like that judge might need a break too, being that the fight was clearly not a draw. For a judge to see the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight and score it as a draw, it just makes wonder about their competence to judge fights correctly.

The fight was not a draw. It was one exhausted short guy in Canelo Alvarez being chased around round ring by the bigger guy with better stamina in Golovkin and getting pelted with jabs for 12 rounds. Canelo was one after 3 rounds, and he didn’t do anything until the 11th and 12. In those last 2 rounds, Canelo fought hard for the first minute, and then got tired and ran.

Personally, I couldn’t give Canelo either of the last two rounds, because he only fought hard in the first minute. Canelo was tired and running after the first minute. In round 12, Canelo tried to go all out in the last 15 seconds of the round, but Golovkin ate him up with combinations. Canelo was knocked off balance in the final seconds of the fight from 2 big shots from Golovkin.

At the moment the Canelo-GGG fight ended, you could see that Canelo looked dejected, as if he knew he had lost the fight. Golovkin had gotten the better of him throughout the fight, even in the 12th. Of course, that wasn’t reflected by the oddball scoring by the 3 judges that were working the fight. They all had Canelo winning the 12th. I couldn’t give Canelo the 12th round, because he did nothing after the first minute of the round other than run and look tired.

Canelo and Golovkin battled for a hard 12 rounds last Saturday night in their much anticipated fight on HBO PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Canelo, 27, was moving up in weight from the 155 lb. self-created catch-weight perch that Canelo has mostly been fighting at for the last couple of years. Golovkin came into the fight as a slight favorite, and he quickly showed why with his constant pressure that he was putting on the younger fighter. Canelo gave a good effort for the first 3 rounds, but then he promptly gassed out from the 4th round until making a late surge in the 11th and 12th.

Golovkin described the judges’ scores as “terrible’ after the fight, and he wasn’t just talking about the 118-110 score by Byrd.

The judge that scored the fight 114-114, Don Trella, also had a “terrible” scorecard. The fight did not look like a draw. How you can look at the same fight that many boxing fans saw last Saturday night and score it as a draw is the magic question. All three judges gave Canelo rounds 10 through 12 despite him only fighting hard in the first minute of those rounds.

Canelo landed some good shots in the first minute, but then he turned red in the face and got dominated in the last 2 minutes of each of those rounds. The only way I can imagine the judges giving Canelo the 10 through 12 rounds is they scored it for the first minute and ignored what happened in the last 2 minutes when he got tired and started eating jabs and left hooks.

“I think she turned in her scorecard before the fight started,” Golovkin trainer Abel Sanchez said at the post-fight press conference after the fight.

Here’s how Don Trella scored the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight:

Round 1 – Canelo

Round 2 – Canelo

Round 3 – Golovkin

Round 4 – Golovkin

Round 5 – Golovkin

Round 6 – Golovkin

Round 7 – Canelo

Round 8 – Golovkin

Round 9 – Golovkin

Round 10 – Canelo

Round 11 – Canelo

Round 12 – Canelo

Trella giving rounds 7, 10, 11 and 12 to Canelo saved him from losing the fight to Triple G. I didn’t see Canelo winning any of those rounds. The 7th round was the oddest thing of all for Trella to give it to Canelo, because that was a one-sided round in Golovkin’s favor. It’s impossible to see what Trella was thinking in giving the 7th to Canelo unless he was so impressed with the punches that the Golden Boy star landed in the opening seconds that he made up his mind right away to give him the round.

Canelo was too tired. He completely exhausted, and getting chased and nailed with shots from Golovkin. The exhausted state that Canelo was in kept me from giving him any of the rounds in the second of the fight. When I see an exhausted fighter only capable of fighting hard in the opening seconds of a round, I don’t give them the round unless they knock their opponent down or if their opponent does nothing in the round. Golovkin was working Canelo over in the second half of the fight, and he wasn’t tired.

“I had suspicions when they gave us the list of judges,” Sanchez said. “I think she needs to go back to school and learn how to judge a fight.”

The 2 judges that worked the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight have been ripped apart ever since the decision was announced. Byrd has received most of the criticism from the boxing fans, but like I said, the 114-114 was almost as bad.

“What was that? People are scratching their heads. They’re confused,” said Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya about the 118-110 score turned in by Byrd.

De La Hoya should be concerned, because this was his fighter Canelo and this was his Golden Boy card. When you bizarre scoring for a fight like the Canelo-GGG fight, you’re hurting the sport of boxing. The fans aren’t going to want to keep purchasing these expensive PPV card if they don’t’ trust that the judges can score the fights accurately by giving it to the fighter that appeared to have won.

The fact that the boxing world saw Canelo losing to Golovkin last Saturday night tells you that the 2 judges that failed to score the fight the way the fans saw it meant they were out on the limb by themselves. It’s not good for boxing to have the loser of a fight given a draw or a win. Canelo deserved a loss. Instead, he walks away with a draw, and Golovkin’s dream of beating Canelo and being recognized as the best fighter in the middleweight division is thwarted.

“Like in any profession, you have a bad night,” Bennett said. “Unfortunately, she didn’t do well. I can tell you she conducts training for us, takes judges under her wing … but her score was too wide.”

Not only was Byrd’s scorecard too wide, but it was slated in the wrong direction with her giving the guy that appeared to lose the fight the win in an overwhelming manner by giving Canelo 10 rounds to 2 victory. That score was scary bad. I don’t know how anyone could see the same fight and come up with that same score. It would be impossible to do. It was obvious from watching Canelo labor from round 4 that he was exhausted from the pressure that was being put on him from Golovkin.

Canelo had bulked up by adding a lot of muscle weight in the training camp for the fight. All that weight likely helped Canelo gas out quicker than he would have if he had just come in at a lean 170 to 175. Canelo looked like he was in the low 180s last Saturday. Carrying all that muscle was dead weight for him. Canelo’s neck looked like it was swollen up like Mike Tyson. Canelo had way too much muscle on him for him to be able to fight hard for a full 12 rounds. Canelo would have been far better off if he’d used the training camp to work on his cardio instead of adding a bunch of muscle weight that ended up slowing him down and hurting him.

“Scoring it that way for Canelo takes away from the greatness of the performance in the ring,” Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler said. “Frankly, it is not good for the sport of boxing.”
Canelo has a rematch clause that he can use to get a second fight with Golovkin if he wants. That rematch is not going to take place until next year though, which is probably bad news for Canelo and Golden Boy. Letting a controversial draw like this to fester for the next 8 months is not good for Canelo or Golden Boy.

It would be far better for them to get back into the ring right away against Golovkin in December so that they can get rid of the taint surrounding the fight. Letting almost a year pass by before making the Canelo-Golovkin rematch is not a good thing for Canelo. It just means there will be more time for the boxing public to see him as a pampered fighter who gets gift decisions. This wasn’t the first time that Canelo has been involved in controversy. His wins over Erislandy Lara and Austin Trout were both controversial. In Canelo’s loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013, one of the judges shockingly scored the fight a draw with a 114-114 score. It’s unclear why controversy seems to follow Canelo.

“I want to thank my fans and of course I want the rematch,”Golovkin said. “This was a real fight. I still have the belts and I’m still champion.”

De La Hoya wants the rematch between Canelo and Golovkin obviously. There’s a lot of money to be made, and Canelo probably needs a rematch to salvage his reputation and popularity with his boxing fans. If Canelo tried to walk away from this draw like he did with the Trout and Lara fight, he would take a big hit with the fans. They wouldn’t forget so soon, even if Canelo started winning again and looking good. For Canelo to make the fans forget about the draw, he’d have to start beating good fighters like Jermall Charlo, Danny Jacobs, David Lemieux and Sergiy Derevyanchenko. Golden Boy hasn’t been mentioning those names relating to Canelo. Once Canelo is done with the Golovkin fights, he’s not likely to take on Jacobs, Charlo or Derevyanchenko. If he did, it would be a pleasant surprise.