Canelo GGG 3 Press scores?

How quickly you forget that for the last 5 years all we heard from GGG fans was how the press scores were in his favor. That was everything to GGG fans after the first 2 fights. But now after the 3rd fight, that tune has changed hasn't it? What a coinkydink.

 

I have no problem with 117-111 and 118-110 for Canelo vs Bivol. 118-110 was a little wide for me, but 117-111 is very reasonable. For Canelo Bivol I thought 116-112 / 117-111 is about right. I would say 115-113 is a little favorable to Canelo but still reasonable. 118-110 is a little favorable to Bivol but still reasonable. Depends on how you scored the first 4 rounds. If you split then 2-2, you get 117-111, if you give 3 out of the 4 to each fighter, you get 116-112 or 118-110.

Mayweather 119-109 is way too wide for but we've been over that countless times. The Maywether bias was real and I scored that straight up giving credit to Canelo in some of those rounds which people were obviously ignoring or not paying attention to. The fact is that the press scores of Mayweather Canelo were very one-sided (like Canelo GGG 3) and I strongly disagree with that view for that one. I know I'm in the minority in having Mayweather Canelo close. Sometimes I agree with the press scores, sometimes I don't. That's how it goes.

 

The 1st and 3rd shots weren't low. They were placed just above the belt-line. Not the best angles on those but you just assume anything you can't see must be low. At worst they hit the upper part of the belt-line which is legal.

 

If it was so clear you wouldn't need slow motion to tell who won. Rounds are scored in real-time not in slow motion. Yes we can use slow motion to review rounds, I'll take a look at Round 1, but in real-time it was a very clear Canelo round, as indicated by the one-sided in favor of Canelo fan scoring of that round that you posted from Boxrec.

 

You just haven't been paying attention. For the last 5 years, press scores were cited and referenced often to reinforce the idea that GGG won both of the first 2 fights. After the 3rd fight, I noticed a big change, this time press scores weren't being discussed or referenced at all. As someone who's been in the minority in the past and had press scores used to put me into the minority, in this case I'm in the majority in seeing the fight as one-sided, while some had it much closer and are tying to act like this was seen by the public as close which it wasn't.

 

I'd have to go back a ways from the discussions of the first 2 fights. The press scores from the first 2 fights were referenced often as supporting evidence for why GGG won those. I never said you mentioned the press scores.

The point is to show what the public's view of the fight was, which was seen as a one-sided fight that was generally not considered close to the vast majority of those that watched it and reacted to it. So when people try to tell me it was a close fight, as some have, I remind them that they are in the small minority with that view.

Posting press scores and boxing pros scorecards isn't making things up or "reframing". That's how the vast majority scored it. It's perfectly fair game to bring this up. When people brought up the press scores of the first 2 fights, I accepted that I was in the minority with a contrarian view that Canelo won the first fight for example. And because I was in the minority, I took it upon myself to explain my reasoning and why I scored it how I did. The way I see it is if you're in the majority, you don't really need to go out of your way to support your score. But when you're in the minority, when you see it different, then it's more important to explain yourself and to support your scoring and reasoning more because of that.

Nobody cares about the 3rd fight? If that's the case, it's because GGG didn't come to fight and GGG got dominated. "No one cares" more like no one wants to talk about it because GGG lost and people don't want to talk about the fact that he lost and in such a one-sided fashion.

 

That's a fair point and certainly something to consider for those like yourself who had it close. I've made a similar argument for why fights like Mayweather Canelo were closer than the press and the vast majority saw it. You could also make that argument for Canelo Bivol, that people saw it as one-sided because rounds 5-8 & 10-12 were more one-sided in favor of Bivol compared to the rounds Canelo won which were closer. This happens in a lot of fights. Another one that comes to mind is Kovalev Ward 1. The rounds that Kovalev won he won pretty clearly, the rounds that Ward won were closer and Ward won by just edging a lot of close rounds.

The difference between Canelo GGG 3 though and these other fights were that GGG didn't come to fight, it was very apparent from the opening bell that he wasn't really trying to win rounds, he looked to be very super cautious and in survival, energy conserving mode, he wasn't really even keeping rounds close until the last 4 rounds. Now you can make the argument that some rounds were arguable for him but it did not have the look of a highly competitive fight until GGG finally started fighting a little in rounds 9-12.

So I understand your argument that the rounds Canelo won were one-sided, and that maybe there were 4 or 5 rounds that could be argued for GGG, but I think you can understand why the public saw it as one-sided as it was. I think there's a difference in perception when a fight is competitive from the opening bell, when two fighters come out swinging ready to fight. For most of the fight, the only one who was pressing the action and trying to make it a fan friendly fight was Canelo. GGG just didn't come to fight, and by the time he started to fight, it was too late. So that is a big reason why the public saw it as wide as they did, but I do agree that what you're saying does apply in many other cases, particularly when casuals and the press goes into a fight with expectations or gets carried away and pretends a fight is more one-sided than it was. I personally didn't think that was the case with Canelo GGG 3, but I respect where you're coming from and think it's something to think about.