Gennady Golovkin vs. Saúl Álvarez - at last, IB's official RBR

Hot take:

I have always had a fairly positive view of Golovkin, held no antipathy toward him, approved of his dedication to his craft, been amused by his persona in front of cameras, advocated for his skillset being underrated if anything in spite of the hype and mountains of attention from HBO, the fans etc., referring to him as more of a thinking man's stalker than merely a basic plodder & puncher as his detractors claim (same dynamic involved with analyzing Kovalev, except with his skills underrated to an even greater extent by those at the irrationally critical end of the spectrum), pointed to his ability in the "shifting arts" of yore, among other attributes to his multilayered game...

I have also been outspoken in thinking Amir Khan is more sizzle than steak, his boxing ability overrated by his most ardent fans, more of a speed demon (and former weight bully) than anything else, with nothing truly exceptionally gifted about him in terms of timing or technique, not to mention his being a bit of a knob-head outside the ring, a sneering loudmouth and braggart for whom there is little warmth from my corner, a fool with a not quite glass but sub-par jaw which he can never acknowledge even to himself, causing stupid defensive lapses that have at times been his undoing (or nearly done, in several other cases dating to his earliest rise in the UK at the lower weights)...

I also would have never entertained with any gracious humor the suggestion I am going to make here; as recently as one year ago it would have elicited from me a response of "you DKSAB" if uttered by literally anyone, including those few whose opinions are worth a damn to me...

But...

It may just be possible, now that we have a direct apples to apples common opponent to contrast their performances against, that...while all of the following I still hold to be true:

Álvarez is always going to look poorer when confronted with movement or forced to lead.
Álvarez is always going to look sensational when allowed to move & counter.
Golovkin's skills have always been underrated than not.
Khan's skills have always been overrated than not.
Styles make fights.

...even taking all that into account before saying this...








...Khan actually has better* technical boxing skill than Golovkin. Yep. I've said it, and I'm not taking it back.

(*in some ways, but very important ways that cannot be holistically ignored when discussing their comparative technical ability...)

Now, don't get me wrong. That isn't to say there aren't things in the sweet science at which Golovkin excels at which Khan is pedestrian at best. However, something as fundamental as being able to cope with a busy jab & lateral movement - that is of critical importance. That is boxing 101, especially if your style is that of stalker-puncher (which Golovkin's is, as versatile and in many ways a well-schooled a boxer as he may be). Khan, while smaller and quicker, and presenting the sort of style that gives Álvarez major headaches, was still able to outbox him, take away his jab, and solve his movement. This wasn't a weight-drained Canelo, either - it was at MW (sort of...almost). Golovkin, on the other hand, seemed completely adrift when Álvarez elected to stick and move with the jab, as if this was his first rodeo and not his 388th (combined am/pro).

If they fought, Khan would be KTFO. If they were the same exact size, however (and they're not, in reality - Khan was a gigantic lightweight and somewhat beefy welter, but I'd say he's a natural 154lber tops, while GGG is a 'tweener, somewhere in the limbo of a nonexistent 164lb division, a stance on which I've been consistent for years: https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...he-record-straight-on-several-matters.532505/)... I'm starting to rethink that. I'm leaning toward Khan UD.

 

Agreed. I think Don Trella's score of evens is within the "reasonable zone", and 115-113 Canelo forms the outer boundary of it. (the former card would mean giving Canelo either of those given to Golovkin on my card that were "close" - the second or third, with only the former being close enough for me to flag it as such in my RBR post; the latter card would mean giving him both. There are IMO no more rounds "in the balance" from my card that you can reasonably swing Canelo's way...)

Now to address shadow111 numerous times claiming the 8th and 9th demand further inspection, and citing the sheer quantity of jabs he saw Canelo landing - these are the sort of rounds in which everybody needs to remove our thumbs from our tally-counters and just watch the narrative of the fight unfold organically. Let the words of Max Kellerman sit at the forefront of your mind. Which of these men would you rather be? Canelo, regardless of however much he may have been scoring relative to Golovkin (unless this were being scored under the criteria in use in the amateurs until recently), was hurt, visibly, a bunch of times. Golovkin made his connections really count in the eighth and especially the ninth - enough so that comparing the # of them with Álvarez's side by side becomes a purely academic exercise and in no way apposite to determining a winner for the round under the professional criteria.

If you want to stand by your assertion that Álvarez has a case in the 8th and 9th, that is a noble (if doomed) commitment to your cause, and I commend you for going down with the ship; full salute, captain. But you will be alone in the wreckage, at the bottom of the sea. I can't see anybody, save those whose investment borders on the fanatical in spinning things in as positive a light as possible for Canelo, getting the impression that he didn't clearly lose 8 & 9.

 

...except the perspective that he puts things into just highlights the crux of Byrd's scorecard differing so much from the consensus view of the fight, and mine, on the strength of the 8th and 9th - a pair of rounds that I can not condone giving to Canelo (hold the Comp-U-Box stat recitations, please) under qualitative analysis - putting the final nail on the coffin of her credibility.

 

Had a feeling this wouldn't be touched with a twenty-foot pole by anyone.

 

Huh? By two rounds, what?

No, I scored it 115-113 Golovkin, as stated many times in this thread. That's still more than two rounds' different from Byrd's, though. That is me giving Golovkin 7, whereas Byrd gave him 2. Had I scored it 8-4, the gulf would be from giving him 8 to giving him 2.

I think you didn't understand my post, at all.

Go back and reread everything, I'm not going to take the time to untangle all this and explain it to you.

shadow111 pointed out that rounds 8 and 9 are the only ones in which Byrd is out of sync with me and everyone else. That doesn't have anything to do with whether or not I feel there are other rounds that you can't award to Canelo (I do). He narrowed the discussion down to those two specifically, to say that to crucify Byrd's card hinges on whether or not you see her scoring the 8th or 9th to Canelo as unforgivable. I do.

 

Hot take #2: I don't think Golovkin at 160 is p4p a harder puncher than Maidana at 140.