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

Khan has excellent skills but has two major weaknesses which would probably let down the larger version against Golovkin (and also Canelo):

1) A tendency to lose concentration and get tagged, coupled with not-the-greatest ring IQ. He's not always switched on 100% of the time.

2) A really poor chin. I don't see how one can beat Golovkin or Canelo with that sort of chin.

Take for example Canelo-Khan. Sure, Khan was winning the early rounds and he'd do the same to Golovkin. But the KO wasn't at all some lucky shot, Canelo had been setting up for several rounds by going to the body to pull Khan's guard down. @escudo has a great article on this. Khan was oblivious to what was going on and thus got hit by the massive right when it finally came. That shot also KOs even a +10lb version of Khan, and note also that a larger slower Amir is probably a bit easier to hit.

Another interesting comparison is Maidana-Khan, one of Khan's best performances. Here Khan had an even larger technical edge, but Maidana still got to Khan in the second half of the fight and hurt him, resulting in quite a close decision. Golovkin is not as dirty, but (especially at his peak) was a better technician and punches harder p4p. Hard to see how Khan can go 12 rounds without his chin getting cracked.

Khan's route to a UD win over Golovkin is basically walking a tightrope for 12 rounds. It's not impossible, but he's no tightrope walker. He simply doesn't have the discipline to make no mistakes, nor the chin to forgive a few mistakes.

Basically Khan needs a chin to have a decent chance of pulling this off. P4p it's a really poor chin, so still a liability even if he's scaled up to Golovkin's size.

 

Here's the article @KiwiMan was on about https://imgur.com/gallery/FXzZG and here is my breakdown of Canelo vs GGG. You might not agree but it's what I saw at the time https://imgur.com/gallery/lKcAK

 

If ever I can help somebody on here make a point in an arguement feel free to summon me.

 

To be fair aside from the 3rd pac fight, A half dead Morales was often the most dangerous Morales there was.

Like Holyfield the fight wasn't really on until he got hurt.

 

I think Morales skill set would match up well with GGG, a high volume puncher with an iron chin who olny gets more dangerous when hurt. To beat GGG you needs to be the predator and force him onto the back foot. GGG is adaptable but that is clearly his B game.

 

Hold on you are saying if khan was naturally same size with GGG. Khan will beat GGG?

 

OK that sounds great and all, to just score the round and not count punches, and to be clear I don't score rounds by counting punches at all. But ya know after watching that round they flashed the jabs landed from the previous round on screen at the start of the 9th and it said 12 to 1 Golovkin and I was just like "wait a second, 12-to-1?, that can't be right". OK? I mean I knew without even counting the jabs that Canelo landed way more than 1 jab in the 8th. I immediately paused the video and went back to the 8th to count the jabs landed. I knew those punch stats were bogus without even counting them. I went ahead and looked up the official Compubox numbers to make sure it wasn't another mysterious error by HBO that was padded Golovkin's punch count after the fight from the live stats. (like what happened in the 5th round with Canelo outlanding Golovkin by 4-5 punches then mysteriously the official numbers having Golovkin mysteriously outlanding Canelo getting credit for like 8 or 9 more punches)

In this case, the 1/18 jabs number for Canelo was confirmed in the official numbers. I couldn't believe it. So, I went back and counted all Canelo's jabs in the 8th just to see how many jabs he really landed. And I made it real easy for you by putting all the timestamps of those jabs I counted. He landed by my count 7 clear flush jabs to the face. In total, he landed about 13 jabs. (the other 6 were more borderline jabs, one of them may have been a left hook) But there were at least 7 clear flush jabs to the face. You can check this. Just use my timestamps OK. I made it real easy for you.

Now, I don't score rounds by counting punches. But, those punch stat numbers from the 8th round were egregious and very misleading, it needed to be brought up because I don't think anybody caught that. I mean, those numbers at the end of the round flash and it causes people to think Golvokin won that round easily. In reality, the total punches landed in the 8th were very even. Compubox has Golovkin outlanding Canelo in that round by 10 punches based on a stat that says Canelo only landed 1 jab out of 18. He landed somewhere in the vicinity of 7-13 jabs. Before we even discuss who won the round, doesn't that alarm you a little bit? To see such a ridiculously low number of jabs for Canelo? 1 jab landed? Are you freakin kidding me lol? Just go through the timestamps and count the jabs. Don't just take my word for it, see for yourself. Before we even discuss who should have won that round, at least do me the courtesy of admitting that Canelo landed a hell of a lot more than 1 jab and those punch stats are completely bogus. That is an embarrasing number, 1 jab landed for Canelo? He landed at least 7 jabs, probably more like 10 since some of them were borderline. I still can't believe that number. So that's the first thing we need to acknowledge about the 8th round. Whoever you thought won that round, if you can't admit that those jab numbers are bogus, then I don't know what more I can say. That to me has got to be the worst case of blatant erroneous misleading punch stats I've ever seen. I mean we're not talkiing about 1 or 2 jabs. We're talking somewhere between 6-12 jabs that Canelo landed that were not counted on punch stats. I mean that's unheard of OK. So before we even get into the actual scoring of the round, please confirm what I'm saying about those jabs landed. Because that's really, really bad OK.

Now on to the scoring of the round :

Which of these men would I rather be? I tell ya one thing, I wouldn't want to be the guy who gets hammered with a fricken uppercut bomb that Golovkin got hit with. That was a massive punch. Now, you're asking me who I would rather be. Canelo didn't get hit with anything close to that kind of power in the 8th round. And after tht punch, you can see Golovkin start to breathe heavily and it carried over to the 9th. His mouth is wide open he's huffing and puffing. I don't want to be the guy huffing and puffing after getting smashed with an uppercut like that OK.

Now, I think what we should do about the 8th is to divide the round into 1/3s right? Take the first minute, and lets talk about who won each minute. Now, you look at that first minute, Look at who landed more punches, who landed the harder punches. Golovkin had that 1 hard jab with 2:15 left. Canelo had several hard punches, left hooks right hands, jabs, etc. Canelo in my estimation won the first minute. Golovkin did well in the 2nd minute, particularly around 1:00 left in the round. It was pretty even in the 2nd minute until about 1 minute left in the round. Golovkin landed several good punches. OK and at that point he started to kinda maybe take a slight lead, maybe it was still about even, then 47 seconds left. Canelo lands a jab, Golovkin responds with several jabs. But then the BOMB. The uppercut BOMB offset a number of those jabs from Golvokin and then some. A punch like that swings a round.

Now, you could argue that Golovkin landed maybe a few more punches overall in the round. But that uppercut was as good as 5 of Golvokin's light jabs at least. That was a massive punch OK. The last 30 seconds was pretty even. OK now you look at the first minute, Canelo won that first minute. The 2nd minute, Golovkin probably won that 2nd minute if you count all the punches around 1 minute left. The final minute, I don't know man that fricken uppercut. To me that's pretty much as even of a round as it gets, but personally in a round that tight, I gotta give a round like that to the guy that lands such a massive punch like that uppercut. And lets understand that Canelo did (by my count, which you can verify) land somewhere between 7-13 jabs in the round. So it wasn't like Golovkin had a huge jab advantage. Maybe he landed 1 or 2 more clear jabs, maybe. I probably should go back and actually count Golovkin's jabs to compare that to the 7-13 that Canelo landed. But regardless IB, you did not even mention the uppercut. Even if you give that round to Golovkin, not mentioning that uppercut in a summary of that round is inexcusable. That's the kind of a punch that wins somebody a round, especially when that fighter starts the round strong, lands several left hooks rights in combination AND 7-13 jabs. Are you kidding me? That's certainly arguable for Canelo winning that round. Now if you score that round to Golovkin, I'm not gonna really object to that too much, he was busy, he was coming forward, he did land some punches, some good jabs. But that was a good round for Canelo. I mean he was fighting off the backfoot nearly the entire round but he was getting his work in man. He was going tit for tat with Golovkin. And that uppercut was just fricken awesome. And you can't deny that.

 

Look here's where you start getting carried away OK. My assertion that Canelo has a case for the 8th. (lets not even worry about the 9th yet) lets just focus on the 8th for now. That's not a "going down with the ship" assertion. OK that's not a "alone in the wreckage at the bottom of the sea" assertion. That uppercut, those combos in the first minute, the landed jabs throughout the round by Canelo. That's plenty of reasons to give Canelo that round. Now, maybe that's more of an even round if you like what Golovkin did. Maybe round 8 could be a 10-10 round. But that's definitely a debatable round. Be real, don't ignore the uppercut, don't ignore the jabs, don't ignore the combos in the first minute.

Golovkin was getting tagged, Canelo was gettin tagged. But in a round that close, it really goes to quality and hardness of the punches. Canelo landed the bigger harder punches in that round, and he landed enough jabs and more combos than Golovkin. That's what happened. I mean you can use whatever adjective and make it sound crazy to have Canelo winning that round, but the footage doesn't lie. Canelo didn't land no 1 jab in the 8th. He landed 7-13 jabs. He landed a brutal uppercut as well several combos left hooks rights in the first minute. OK now I really hope you take a good hard look at this round, my timestamps, what I'm saying about the jab punch stat misleading discrepancy and if you can't come to some sort of a realization that that was a good round for Canelo then I don't think you're really looking at this round or this fight very objectively. In the 6th you demonstrated that you are giving Canelo some credit there. But the 8th was a lot like the 6th, and the 7th to an extent. But the uppercut in the 8th was really impressive to me, I have a hard time giving that round to Golovkin. Maybe 10-10 is something I could do, but to just give Golovkin that round to me you're missing a great round not admitting how close and just how exciting it was.

Canelo showed in the 8th that he's very effective fighting off the backfoot. That's where Golovkin really got himself into trouble, was when he started to follow Canelo around he was getting surprised with big punches pretty much every round. So take a look at the jabs, rate the uppercut, look at the work Canelo did in the first minute, those left hooks, those combos. Close round that was. Very impressive what Canelo put together in the 8th.

 

Searching polls across news sites, social media etc the results are nearly always this... GGG win 80%, Canelo win 10%, Draw 10%.

No matter how much drivel is posted by shadow about the unbelievable epic uppercuts Canelo landed etc etc... Most people know who the real winner was and that would be the still unified champ and #1 MW GGG...

 

That’s the issue. I personally had GGG winning 115-113 (with a stronger case for 116-112 than 114-114), but had that score been 115-113, there wouldn’t have been as much outrage.

It became abundantly clear one judge didn’t show up to score a fight. And so many had GGG winning, it’s easy to believe a non-biased judge would have GGG the victor.

But the other potential bribery is Don Trella’s 7th round to Canelo. I just don’t see it. And if Byrd can give that one to GGG (although I’m not positive she actually watched the fight while scoring), along with just about everyone else who watched the bout, how could he justify the 7th to Canelo? It made his card, and the bout, a tie.