Trout & Alvarez are huge Light Middleweights. Both weighed in 170+ which I sort of have trouble fathoming. I don't think Floyd will fight Alvarez, and he shouldn't have to because of the weight disparity. Trout & Alvarez are as big as Martinez... Actually bigger. Alvarez is actually a better boxer than most thought, much better than Trout. He didn't need to corner Trout. He was better at the center of the ring when he wanted to be. Alvarez seems to be a very focused fighter, and when he concentrates his defense is superb. Alvarez definitely has a motor issue. He explodes with punches, but only fights in spurts. I had a discussion with someone while watching the fight about this. Alvarez seems to explode with punches, and isn't capable of fighting at a higher punch-rate. This person I was with understood this but just felt that it had more to do with Alvarez's mentality. It's a good point worth noting. A bit of both maybe. Alvarez defense on the ropes was great. While I think Alvarez is has stamina concerns, his defense never laxed because of it. I thought he was very intelligent to try and lure Trout into punches by playing possum. Trout's jab was pretty good, but his left hand was almost non-existent. Trout was very busy. His work-rate kept in the fight like I thought, but his defense certainly illustrated there was a gap in thought regarding this category. The open-scoring definitely had an effect on Trout. On one hand its nice for Trout to have a chance to put destiny in his own hands. At the same time, it forces him to do something he shouldn't have to, and ultimately I thought he was more likely to get himself hurt because of it. I'm not sure I really like open scoring. The 118-109 scorecard was rather bad. It wasn't unjustifiable, but it certainly suggests some element of bias, corruption, or incompetence. There was a lot of close rounds. A lot of them, and it takes basically giving Canelo all of them for Trout to win only 2 rounds. He definitely won the 1st, and practically won the last because we knew the result. It was just bad. Ultimately it was a very tough fight to score. A lot of close rounds. Canelo explodes so much with his punches. Everything he does is so eye-catching, even if it's not quite a lot. Trout was throwing a lot but Canelo rendered him ineffective, but he definitely had plenty of quantity on his side. Canelo seemed to hurt Trout with almost every punch he threw. Trout seems a little top-tall. His legs were a little unsteady, and his punches looked slow but he threw a lot. Canelo was very fast in comparison. It's weird because Canelo didn't throw and made you think he had to be tired but Trout threw a lot but was pushing his punches like he was the one tired. Trout's got heart, he tried to win even when he really wasn't getting a fair shake. I scored the fight 114-113 for Canelo. The knockdown made the difference on my card.
When you slip, bob, weave and make a guy miss --- it looks nice. To score pts. you have to make him pay --- score with counter punches. I saw lots of nice little slips by Canelo, but not too many counters. Judges were very generous.
This is true. While Canelo showed a better than anticipated defense (I wouldn't call it superb because Trout's punches were often quite slow and Canelo still got caught occasionally), when he was fully defensive he rarely threw back. That's what swayed me to score for Trout on several close rounds. Also I wouldn't say Canelo was better in the center when he wanted to be. I really think he got tired and was forced to lower his already low punch output. So yes, at times he looked better and has the ability to look better, but fatigue dictated his pace. To his credit he adapted relatively well and still threw some very powerful and accurate punches. Trout's punches were weak, sometimes sloppy, and even when he landed a clean blown it had little effect. He also wasn't very accurate.
Good post. :good If Canelo sorts his stamina out, he'd be unbeatable at this weight. But I get the feeling that someone smart enough will come along and take advantage of his lapses.
