Canelo Alvarez vs Billy Joe Saunders: Your Scorecards?

I'm always willing to hear people's arguments on how they scored the fight. I do judge based on the 4 criteria and weigh clean punches the most. Pity pat jabs that don't really back off an opponent don't really make a difference for me. When I see a boxer landing hard punches, making his opponent wince, cover up, back off, afraid, those make more of an impact for me. I didn't see BJS land much of significance and Canelo kept landing nice crisp hard counters all night. I basically saw all his early body work led to BJS covering up more and more which eventually led to his covering up the body and ducking into the uppercut. If you got a different take I'm all ears.

 

What do you make of the Punch Stats in Round 4?

Canelo 15/32 46.9% Saunders 5/34 14.7%
Jabs Canelo 5/18 27.8%, Saunders 1/17 5.9%
Power Punches Canelo 10/14 71.4% Saunders 4/17 23.5%

What do you make of those numbers. Surprising to you? According to Compubox, Round 4 was a Canelo domination. Did Billy really only land 1 jab out of 17 that round?

 

You know that BJS has a hit and run style, don't you? He's not a big puncher or a brawler who will fight toe to toe against his opponent. So you can't expect to see BJS's good clean punches a lot in a fight. I am not wondering why you gave him 2 rounds when reading your criteria above. Certainly, the 3 judges at the ringside do not work that way.

 

You mean 78-77. The maximum score after 8 rounds is 80.

 

Added you in there CST.

I wasn't expecting him to fight toe to toe. He is a very talented fighter and considered him a live underdog. However so far I haven't seen anyone give a solid defense on why they thought he was winning any of the rounds.

All judges are expected to judge based on the 4 criteria. clean punching, effective aggression, defense, and ring generalship.

- Clean punching self explanatory
- Effective aggression - I consider a fighter to be effective with their aggression if they can cut off the ring and land punches. If a fighter is just following his opponent and can't land anything, not effective.
- Defense - self explanatory
- Ring generalship - The most nuanced and the least agreed upon. However I consider this if a boxer can effectively impose his style, set the pace, keep the fight at the distance where they want it, set up feints, set up counters, all that is part of ring generalship. If an outboxer and effectively keep a pressure fighter on the outside that's effective ring generalship. If a pressure fighter can back an outboxer into the ropes or make it an inside fight that's effective ring generalship.

Throughout the fight I saw Canelo cornering BJS and landing counters. BJS wasn't able to make effective use of the ring and couldn't back Canelo off. At no point did I see BJS with a commanding jab and he was falling for feints and counters all night. His best round was round 5 when he had Canelo swinging at air and was landing his own counters, but that was about it. I can't make a strong argument for BJS, but I can for Canelo.

Like I said, you want to make a case for BJS I'm all ears.

 

As a special favor to the leader of Canelo's army I rewatched the round.

BJS was using his jab to control space and establish ring generalship for most of the round. That allowed him to get in position for a couple combinations which is what I liked and why he edged it for me. Some of the punches in the combinations were partially blocked but I really think he landed more than those stats make out. Meanwhile, he was making Canelo miss entirely most of the time. In a close round, you need to find differences where you can.

Canelo did land the best couple of punches of the round and may have stolen it in the last minute with a great uppercut, a preview of what happened later. I found it hard to justify giving him this one after also giving him round 1.

 

Canelo 1-4,8
Saunders 5-7

So 5-3 Canelo but could also have been 4-4 or even 5-3 Saunders.
But I felt they were reaching trying to give him rounds 1 and 4.

 

I'm not a big fan of BJS either since I don't like his style. However, your explanations above are very clear to me how you scored the fight. I can't make a long argument with you because I'm not a native English speaker. Sorry about that. Maybe I can have CT 180 my friend do this job (keep debating with you) if he wishes. Thanks for your explanations above anyway.