Was Terence Crawford vs Canelo Alvarez competitive?

Agree entirely, the is very much a phenomenon that frequently clouds one's judgement. I wrote a thread about a decade ago on here about the stigma of the disastrous first round. When a fighter gets battered senseless or dropped multiple times in the first round, it shapes their expectations early, and that hangs as a pall over the entire fight, because they're expecting to see a repeat of that round. Which blinds them often to the reality that the guy who got wrecked in the first, is consistently doing the better work the rest of the fight, which leads to irate often irrational overreactions when they guy they keep expecting to get KTFO, sees the final bell and is awarded the decision. It happened with Algieri-Provodnikov, Jean Pascal-Yunieski Gonzalez and Froch-Groves I. While Algieri and Pascal got mangled in the first, they clearly did the better work in the rest of the rounds, while Ruslan and Yunieski were largely ineffective. Same thing happened to an extent in the Bradley-Provodnikov fight and with Pacquiao and Marquez I & II. Even with Froch, sure he came damned close to getting brutally KO'd by Groves in the first, that shaped expectations, so everyone was wincing in horror at every flush straight right that Groves landed, expecting one to drop him any second. While sure Groves was outboxing him, they were missing all of the subtle work to the body and damaging flurries that Froch was inflicting along the way. Groves was ready to go when it wa stopped, the only thing that the ref got wrong was, not waiting a little bit longer for the inevitable to occur organically.

So 100% people were expecting Bud to get KO'd, so they overstated how well he was actually doing. They were ****ing amazed to the point of being hypnotized. While I was fully expecting Bud to box Canelo's ears off, and then get worn down and stopped late. So seeing Canelo hang with him tit for tat for the first 6 rounds actually impressed me. Now was my perspective shaped by my expectations going in? Possibly. But seeing those rounds as close nip and tuck is a far more accurate read on them than the people who saw a Bud schooling.

 

Being a little intellectually dishonest here now aren't you? The reason Bud's numbers are so astronomical is because of the ridiculously high amount of shots he landed in two rounds, the 8th and the 11th. Which account for 51 of those punches. The rest were pretty close.

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Yes, shots which were falling short or being blocked are scoring shots for Crawford but ones for Clenelo are not and the two Clenelo fanboys doing commentary are shaping a narrative in real time which is not reflective of actual reality

Imagine drafting in Belly or The Dosser to do commentary for an AJ fight vs the biggest star in their country?

Going in I didn't for one second believe that Crawford was in danger of getting robbed in his backyard even though Clenelo is the poster boy for receiving gifts from the judges. Dychko beat Franklin on the undercard more decisively than Crawford beat Clenelo but they robbed him blind even though Franklin is a no name too. Bivol schooled Clenelo at worst losing a couple of rounds but he only won by a round on the judge's cards despite winning at least 10 on most people's cards

Why enlist the services of two massive Crawford fanboys to do the commentary one of whom is a notorious Clenelo hater if you want fair and balanced commentary? They can still craft a narrative and sway public opinion without making it obvious. All they have to do is create a narrative Crawford is winning or winning rounds he isn't and is landing with more or better shots than Clenelo

Kellerman proclaiming Crawford ''the greatest fighter of his generation'' like it's set in stone wasn't just ass licking of the highest order it was the narrative he'd been paid to push or wanted to push going in. Who the beep does he think he is? Like he's the exalted arbiter of such things?

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As I have explained many times, when foreigners fight Americans in the US in a world title fights it's practically the norm for the ref and all 3 judges to be from the US, or at least 2 judges if not. This literally only happens in the US and not in a single other country in the world for world title fights between a home and away fighter. I'm not suggesting Clenelo was robbed but this stacked deck ensures US maintains dominance in the sport and that their boys are the most privileged in the world and can retain their unbeaten records, have more world champions, and come out on top in these legacy defining fights

 

1000%. Ironically, when a commentator is training one of the fighters in the ring or is personally associated with them, they occasionally ask them to excuse themselves, so the commentary doesn't give the appearance of bias. I guess just being plain old outspoken virulent haters and fanboys have a loophole. Maybe we should put our hats in the ring to call Kovalev-Ward III if it ever happens.

 

Ward has been proclaiming Crawford P4P#1 going way back, whether it be over Clenelo, Usyk, Inoue, or Loma when he was #1. He's never had any of them ranked #1 since he got a chance to make an argument for Crawford being so

The only time I recall him saying another fighter was P4P#1 over Crawford is when he said Rigo was #1 prior to the Loma fight

Look at what he had to say after Loma schooled Rigo with ease

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As said, he's had Crawford ranked P4P#1 for ages and his reasoning for doing so wouldn't hold up to scrutiny. He'd trip up over his own logic in seconds under scrutiny

 

So... we're just discarding Compubox altogether now, and only relying on AI? But what AI do we rely on? Jabbr had it for Crawford while the AI judge for the Ring magazine had it a draw. Clearly none of them are all that reliable. So I'll just go with what I saw, which was a very close fight.