What's amazing is the GGGoons having a hard time accepting the draw, even though the GGGoons agree that: 1. 7-5 for GGG is a reasonable score 2. The rounds were close 3. Canelo landed the cleaner more telling punches
The Pattern is in every big, close fight of his. If it was 1 or 2, then it could be reasoned away. But Every fight? If I recall, I scored Cotto 8-4 for Canelo--but 11-1? That's a "little off" I didnt see the Trout or Lara fights, but the consensus seems to be that Canelo won very close, competitive fights. But both of those there is 1 card that seems "a little off" CJ Ross was forced into retirement for her "little off" 6-6 against FM. Even in the Khan fight there was a 4-1 card before the KO we all knew was going to happen. Thats a pattern. And its starting to get very noticeable. Its the reason at least I for one thought GGG wouldnt get a fair shake against Canelo on the cards--and what do you know, there it is yet again. A wide card that seems "a little off"
I don't think anyone can say with conviction that GGG's jab is weak, meaningless or ineffective. It's a major component of his offensive framework. For GGG, everything works off the jab and has for the better part of his pro career. Regardless of punch stats, it is clear GGG threw more, missed more and landed more punches than Alvarez. Alvarez didn't implement the usual offensive game plan or strategy we are used to seeing from him in his fight with GGG. The question is why? If we look at all of Canelo's best performances and compare those to his last fight against Golovkin we'll notice a stark contrast in strategy. At his best, Canelo doesn't back up, retreat or back peddle as frequently as he did against Golovkin. He also doesn't use his legs as the foundation of his Defense when he's at his best. Alvarez, offensively is by far more consistent and balanced when he's operating on his level. We see that in his fights with Amir Khan, James Kirkland and Liam. Against GGG, Alvarez went with a completely different kind of strategic fight plan which triggers the question, Why? The question has a logical answer which doesn't require much critical thinking. GGG took Alvarez out of his comfort zone by forcing him to fight Golovkin's fight. Let's be real, this was not a brawl or a slug fest. Were there big shots landed? Sure....not many but Alvarez had a few noteworthy spots inside the 12 rounds that definitely stood out. Golovkin also had moments where he landed some big shots that stood out...but this just wasn't that kind of fight were a lot of big bombs were landed. Alvarez definitely landed more of those telling punches between him and GGG, but in totality there just were not that many to have a real impact on the fight. What did have a big impact was the offensive consistency from Golovkin. He just dictated the action...controlled the distance with his jab...moved Alvarez around the ring at a pace that was uncomfortable and simply made it a GGG kind of fight. Ring Generalship. A lot of clean punches did land...they just weren't the big, flashy punches all fans want to see. There was also a lot of punches that missed....more so from Golovkin which is expected. He was the busier fighter, having to chasing down a very shifty Alvarez. Canelo showed brilliant boxing and defensive savvy in spots....but they were so sporadic and inconsistent that it did very little to help him wrestle control away from the champion. Back peddling is a defensive tactic, not a skill. We know Canelo has defensive skills where he uses great head & upper body movement....lateral movement, angles and pivots to make opponents miss offensively while staying within range where he can land his own offense. He did very little of that in the fight with GGG. His base or the defensive foundation was mostly using his legs to keep as much distance between him and the pursing Golovkin as possible. Scoring the fight was not hard....some fights are difficult. This was one of those fights that was clear because Alvarez and Golovkin had such contrasting strategies. One was defensive, the other offensive and the control never shifted....Golovkin maintained control throughout the fight. I agree punch stats aren't necessary to help anyone score individual rounds or should be used to prove a winner. I don't think most of the people who weighed in on the fight were swayed by compu box or Lederman's round by round score cards. Especially the fans who were there live.
Don't remember my exact score for the Cotto fight, but I had Canelo winning going away, at least 9-3. Cotto only really flicked the jab. Does Cotto's flicks override Canelo's harder more effective punches?????? I would say a resounding no. At least with Golovkin although somewhat off balance, he was letting both hands go, not the case with the conservative Cotto. Absolutely Canelo won comfortably over Cotto. Not even close imo.
I had it 7-5 Mayweather over Canelo, so 6-6 doesn't seem over the top , the problem with boxing commissions is they take it out on the judges when the media wants accountability. The only scorecard that I would say was over the top would be 4-1 Canelo over Khan, the rest are not out of the realm of possibility even though the rounds oare being fought competively. People don't seem to understand, competive doesn't always equate to close on the cards. A fight can be competitive and still be 10-2
Hmm...it's not hard to understand why you don't have many "Likes" - I mean, 1500 "Likes" out of 32000 Posts is nothing to be proud of. Is it? Why don't you try being more polite? Thanks.
Great. But that does become a noticeable pattern and one that starts to be a concern or hangs over a fighter when it's in every big fight there's always one card that's a "little off". One or two fights, sure. But every big name fight. It's a problem. Sure you can deny it or explain it away until your heart is content but it's there and it's not debatable. When I see one fighter get one wide card on every fight it does start leading to more questions.
I didn't find most rounds to difficult to score either, even the ones that were really close, I'd say to myself, "Who landed cleaner and harder?" ......and almost every time I asked myself that question, the answer was clear, Canelo Alvarez. 10-9 Canelo Alvarez. The one thing I find outright wrong about your premise for scoring for Golovkin is this idea that Canelo doesn't merit the rounds because he's altering his gameplan from what he normally does. He doesn't normally prance around the ring like Ali, so therefore even though he's hammering Golovkin off the counter with shots, Canelo doesn't merit such rounds because Golovkin made him do what he normally doesn't do, move??? If that's Ali doing it, he's mastering and clowning his opponent, but if its Canelo who normally would sit in the pocket and move minimally, then he shouldn't get credit for it because he's never shown to prance around the ring using leg mobility?????? Listen, your premise that Golovkin was making Canelo run and therefore was being effective doesn't hold water because right off the bat in the first round Canelo came out with that gameplan of moving the ring laterally. That right there tells you its the gameplan by Canelo, and not particularly Golovkin forcing Canelo to run laterally. Had Canelo started out guns blazing, ran out of gas, and then started running like DLH vs Trinidad late in the fight, then your premise might hold some water, but that's not what happened here. What happened here is Canelo gameplanned to move and shoot hard, and quite frankly, it worked.
I see it the other way, there's only one judge with the balls to put themselves out there and score each round the way they actually saw it instead of saying to themselves, "you know this fight is really competive, maybe I should switch over and give this next round to the other fighter."
Again, great that you are able to do that. Unfortunately, perception is reality and sooner or later, or maybe even now, the perception becomes that this guy always has a pocket judge that is going to score the fight wide for him no matter how close the fight is and no matter how close the other scores were or how close the media's score cards are.
I usually go with cleaner harder punches as well, but when they're a rare commodity in a boxing match, as it was in the GGG vs Alvarez then I look at the other metrics of scoring a round. One....maybe two clean hard punches vs 8, 9, 10....clean effective punches...dictating the pace, controlling range...being the ring general etc.. Those measurables out weigh the couple of hard shots that may have landed. Most of the rounds played out that way... Altering fight strategy is great, if it's effective. Unfortunately Alvarez's alterations proved far less effective than his adjustments in fights that he found success, consistently. Canelo wasn't exactly "hammering" Golovkin with counters at a sustained rate that would buy him more than a few rounds. Mainly due to the fact he moved more than he threw punches. He was overly defensive and only finding marginal success when he did attempt to counter. His connect percentage dipped with the adjustments he opted to go with which is why it wasn't well received by he overwhelming number of fans who watched the fight. Look....I never said Alvarez "ran". I've maintained my position Canelo backed up or back peddled against GGG. Alvarez adding new wrinkles to his robust bag of skills is great....but let's level set..he didn't make Ali proud with his rendition of Muhammad's "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee". I don't think anyone will be able to replicate the blend of controlled violence and poetry in motion that Ali painted during his best years as a boxer. Canelo should stick to what made him the great fighter he is today....what allowed him to dominate most of his fights. Had he tried to pay homage to Ali by replicating his style in moderation it may have proven successful? Canelo probably gassed faster with all the back peddling. He put in a lot of road work and added a good amount of ring miles with that game plan. Sure....it worked some. Just not enough to outweigh the the work Golovkin put in over the 12 sets
I scored the fight myself. My numbers were not exactly Compubox but they followed the trend, pretty much. Canelistas don't credit Golovkin for blocking or slipping many of the so-called "head-snapping, bone crunching" Canelo punches. GGG simply doesn't move as much when defending as Canelo, and you guys interpret that as poor defence. Watch in slow motion. Canelo was not nearly as effective as you think.
Golovkin's defense wasn't that bad, but he did get hit with significantly amount of cleaner punches than did Golovkin. To me that was the difference maker. Most of Golovkin's connects were of the partial or Canelo taking the sting off the shot by being up close and smothering it, or being out of range to where Golovkin's punch would barely reach Canelo. Golovkin landed so few shots that you could say were in his punching power range. We are going to have to agree to disagree. One thing I will say is that I'm very confident that Canelo will at the very least equal and most likely surpass his performance in the rematch. I don't get the sense that Golovkin fans have the same confidence that Golovkin will beat Canelo in the rematch. To me that speaks about what they really felt about Golovkin's performance the first fight.
