Seems to be a hot topic at the moment with the views being very polar opposite. But I was wondering if the claims of fix were from a vocal minority or if it is commonly held belief. Please vote.
Wasn't Kov up on the cards with a couple of the judges at the time of the stoppage? I know judges are widely seen to be incompetent but this takes it to a whole new level...
No, for the love of boxing. Yes, for everyone who knows anything about the sport at the highest level.
copied from another thread. If you think the fight was fixed then you're a literal idiot. You either don't like the result of the fight or Canelo. Wtf fight were you watching? Kovalev used the perfect game plan to outbox Canelo on the outside despite his shot punch resistance. Every time Kovalev would try to commit to power shots Canelo would counter him with vicious shots that had Kovalev on high alert. Kovalev was actually winning the last 3 rounds before he got KO'd on all judges scorecards and I thought he was clearly winning the fight, certainly came the closest to outboxing Canelo since the Lara fight. Canelo came out in the 11th extremely aggressive because he knew he was losing the fight, he was throwing monstrous counters but since Kovalev was tired and never knew how to properly clinch cost him the fight. Extremely underrated performance by Canelo, but understandably critiqued since Kovalev didn't have enough time to recover and rest between fights, especially for a high profile fight such as Alvarez. I believed he fought the best he could given the circumstances, but a fix? You don't get knocked out like that in a fix.
No it wasn’t fixed, but I don’t think Kovalev was close to being in good condition for the fight. I’m a big canelo fan, but that fight showed me that an on-form Kovalev would have beaten Canelo with relative ease…..But then I wouldn’t have considered it a fair fight due to the size disparity.