GGG deserved win over Canelo says George Lopez

Boxingnews24.com

By Dan Ambrose: Comedian George Lopez and super bantamweight world champion Jessie Magdaleno are just 2 of many people that feel that IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) should have been given the win against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) in their fight on September 16 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The judges scored the Canelo-Golovkin fight a 12-round draw. The results of the 2 judges that failed to give Golovkin the victory have upset a legion of boxing fans, as they feel that they made a huge mistake with their erratic scoring. Judge Adelaide Byrd scored it for Canelo 10 rounds to 2 with her 118-110 score. Judge Don Trella scored the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight 114-114, and gave Canelo round 7. That was the round where Canelo got worked over for the entire round.

Lopez was impressed with the pressure that GGG put on Canelo, and he felt that he won based on being the aggressor in the fight.

“I’m going to be honest, I thought Triple G; I love Canelo, but I thought Triple G was the aggressor, and kept going forward,” said actor George Lopez to K.O. Artist Sports. “I thought it was him winning the fight. I would not have envisioned a draw, to tell you the truth. I was shocked that it was a draw,” said Lopez.

Lopez is just one of many boxing fans that saw Golovkin winning. Golovkin is lucky though that the fight was seen by so many boxing fans. Had it been a fight that slipped under the radar like most fights in the sport, no one would have made a fuss about the results due to not enough fans having seen the fight. The Canelo vs. Golovkin fight has now been seen by millions on HBO pay-per-view, and on the replay, Canelo vs. Golovkin – “The Draw in the Desert.” Even more fans were angered last Saturday night when they got the chance to see the Canelo-GGG fight for the first time when the replay was televised on HBO.

“That’s bad,” said Lopez when asked about his view on the 118-110 score turned in by judge Adelaide Byrd in favor of Canelo. “That lady, maybe there’s a pie contest somewhere in LA County. That was bad.”

With the fight creating so much anger in the boxing world with fans, you would think that Canelo and Golden Boy would be pushing for a rematch against Golovkin as soon as possible so that they could have a chance to shut down the criticism as fast as possible. That’s not Canelo and Golden Boy’s plans. They’re likely going to wait 8 months before they stage the rematch on the Mexican holiday weekend on May 5 on Cinco de Mayo. That means Canelo and Golden Boy is going to need to deal with the anger and criticism from the fans for another 8 months instead of just 3 months if they had gone ahead and scheduled the rematch in December.

Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler says they would take the rematch with Canelo in December if it were offered to them, as they want to face him as soon as possible. Golovkin wants to prove to the boxing fan that he’s the better fighter, and he doesn’t mind having to get back into the ring to fight Canelo in 3 months from now.

“At the end of it all, I thought Triple G got it,”said WBO super bantamweight champion Jessie Magdaleno to K.O. Artist Sports. “I scored it 7-5. I thought he won by 2 rounds. He was the busier fighter. He was making Canelo miss, and he was hitting him as well. He had a lot of good jabs. He had a lot of good moments, as well as Canelo. But Canelo was more on his shoes, moving around. He didn’t want to sit there in the point with Triple G. I knew he felt his power, and I know Triple G felt Canelo’s power. But at the end of it, I felt that Triple G was the bigger guy, and he did more of the work than Canelo did,” said Magdaleno.

Magdaleno sees the Canelo vs. GGG fight like a lot of boxing fans do. They feel that Golovkin was the busier fighter and did more than enough to rate the win. Canelo wouldn’t stand and fight Golovkin. He was moving constantly around the ring, and looking tired. In hindsight, Canelo’s trainers Eddie and Chepo Reynoso should have told their fighter to go after Golovkin to make a fight of it, because the movement that he was doing wasn’t going to win hi the fight. Maybe Canelo didn’t have the physical ability to stay in the pocket for a full three minutes of each round. Goodness knows. Canelo didn’t stay in the pocket and fight Golovkin for even one round.

Canelo was constantly moving and looking exhausted from the pressure that was being put on him by the 35-year-old Golovkin. Canelo, 27, had the youth and the hand speed advantage in the fight. It should have been enough of an advantage for Canelo to feel confident that he could stand in the pocket and fight Triple G. But like Magdaleno said, Canelo felt how hard Golovkin hits, and he wanted no part of standing in front of him and trading shots. Canelo just wanted to move and avoid Golovkin for the major portions of each round.

The scoring by the 2 judges, Byrd and Trella, saved Canelo from suffering a loss that he should have. With all the negative press in the boxing world, the judges did Canelo and Golden Boy no favors by failing to score it as a loss for him. The boxing public already views it as a defeat, and they see those 2 judges as failing to have done their jobs correctly. It would have been better for Canelo if he’d been simply given a defeat rather than having fans looking at him like he was given a gift draw due to his popularity.

“I was shocked. I did not expect that at all,” said Magdaleno about the 118-110 score. “It was such a wide margin of scoring on that. I don’t know how she saw that score. It was a bad call, and it made everybody upset,” said Magdaleno.

The 118-110 score is mindboggling to try and understand. Adelaide Byrd really messed up with her wide score. Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez believes that the boxing public would have been fine with Byrd giving Canelo a win by a smaller margin. I don’t agree with that. Byrd wouldn’t receive as much criticism if she gave Canelo a narrow win, but she would still receive tons of scorn, because the fans would still believe she blew it in giving the wrong fighter the victory.

“You could tell in the rounds how tired Canelo was getting from such pressure that Triple G was giving, cutting the corners and making him suffer,” said Magdaleno. ”I think that’s what gave the edge to Triple G. I’m looking forward to the rematch. I see Canelo using his speed a lot more. There’s nothing wrong with boxing. He can box the ring, but you’ve got to throw. You can’t win fights by just moving. You have to throw punches,” said Magdaleno.

Canelo was so incredibly tired after the 3rd round from the pressure that Golovkin was putting on him. That’s why it was so difficult to give Canelo any rounds after the 3rd, because he was exhausted and running from Triple G. Anyone that had their eyes open during the Canelo-GGG fight could see how exhausted Canelo was. It was easy to see, because Canelo turned red. His face was red, and he looked flustered.

The body language of Canelo was someone that had lost hope of winning the fight, and he was just running and trying to stall out the rounds. The fact that 2 of the judges would fail to see this is surprising, because these are supposed to be professional judges. How could they blow it so badly?
”I see Triple G pressing more, and landing a lot more big shots, and setting up a lot more punches with that terrific jab that he has,” said Magdaleno about the Canelo vs. Golovkin rematch.

It’s clear that Golovkin will put much more pressure on Canelo in the rematch, especially if the fight takes place in Las Vegas again. Golovkin isn’t going to want to take chances by letting Canelo go the full 12 round distance. Golovkin is going to put so much pressure on Canelo that he’s either going to get knocked out or he’ll be so badly gassed out that the judges can’t help but to notice this and score the fight for Golovkin.