Do you think the judging in Canelo vs Bivol was corrupt/biased

Yes. This is called institutional corruption. It so corrupt it is part of the ordinary business of system.

 

BUT WHAT ABOUT THOSE UPPERCUTS????!!!!

 

It's the main reason my interest in boxing has waned, sadly. It's not just Canelo, all over the world B-sides and visiting fighters are getting robbed, or even if not a robbery, everything 50-50 goes to the A-side.

 

It does strike me as odd that all three judges awarded the ginger fellow a clean sweep of the first four rounds. At least, it would've struck me as odd if the ginger fellow wasn't Canelo. Given that it is Canelo, it's easy enough to chalk up to A-side bias, shady goings-on, et cetera.

What's much odder is that they awarded him a clean sweep of the first four rounds and then didn't rationalize three more for him over the course of the remaining eight.

It's as if they perceived the direction the fight was headed in around the middle of the bout, figured this one would be too big a steal to get away with or live down and elected to score it straight from that point on.

 

Tremendous punch placement, Bivol never been hit like that in his life. Those left a lasting impression on the judges.

 

Even though most were at the very least partially blocked

 

Joe Smith hit him a lot harder

 

Oh, make no mistake about. They landed alright, they landed hard.

 

This is a bit of a book, but I'll engage.

My point is about the general way A-sides get anything that's vaguely close to a 50-50 round. I'm not talking only about Canelo in particular, I'm talking about numerous events all over the world, not just in the US, but also the UK, NZ, Aus, Germany, Russia, Italy, France, you name it. Where the A-side / hometown fighter gets the benefit of the doubt, so often with hardly anyone to even complain since these are pretty obscure fights. I can even cite examples from my own country (NZ), some underdogs have got jobbed quite badly too. Let's leave Canelo aside for the moment. Do you agree that this does happen systematically?

Now about Canelo. The thing you fail to see is that almost every round that Canelo has an argument for, he gets. My argument is NOT "hey, these scorecards are so far out there must be corruption involved", which is what your argument is contending with; but rather that "see, the A-side fighter got all the close rounds again". This is entirely consistent with the problem above. There's no pre-fight instructions or bribe money paid to make Canelo win. He doesn't need to do anything; simply the A-side pressure, the cheering of the crowd, the desire to fit in with the other judges and be hired for the next fight, means the 50-50s usually go to him.

Now about you personally. You look at the fight and you generally score towards Canelo compared to the general boxing public. You probably don't intend to be biased, and I am willing to concede that you honestly and genuinely believe your card is correct. Note that some of my best friends on here also have some cards that appear biased towards the fighter they like, which again I know to be genuine opinions. Because you generally score Canelo fights close to the judges, you don't have an issue with the judges and don't see any systematic bias towards Canelo. However, surely you would have to concede a general bias towards A-side hometown fighters ... ???

 

Even months later casual fans who saw the fight will have forget and then rematch hype they will bee persuaded by Canelo hype that it was quite close fight. T saying 'the right man got the decision' and 'it was not so corrupt otherwise they woulda give it Canelo' is missing whole point . Judges had to give this one to Bivol but they still protect Canelo record with the score line as you say.