HBO: Gennady Golovkin vs. Kell Brook & Roman Gonzalez vs. Carlos Cuadras RBR.

:good

 

I watched the fight when it happened but didn't follow the scoring debate much and didn't watch it again then. I rewatched it now, so will throw in my perspective and score.

It was a tremendous fight. High class skill, great style contrast, and both guys showed great heart to keep pressing deep in the fight. Cuadras' style, his movement and management of distance was tough for Roman. But however close it was and as well as Cuadras performed, Gonzalez deserved the win.

Gonzalez's punching was much cleaner and more effective throughout. He was the guy putting leather on skin, he placed his shots well, and found further punching room with the punches he landed. While when Cuadras controlled the action he wasn't actually committing to his power and landing clean. He would flurry, land one of a four punch combo, then pivot away. Cuadras' hitting and moving might win the majority of rounds if Gonzalez wasn't landing, but he sure was. Gonzalez showed better defence all the way too, caught a lot with his gloves or shoulders, so Cuadras simply didn't land too many scoring or effective blows.

Gonzalez edged the 1st, then dominated the 2nd to 4th. Even in the 5th, 6th, and 8th that Cuadras won Gonzalez would land clean shots between Cuadras' combinations. In the second half of the fight Cuadras stood his ground and committed to landing more, but because he stayed with Gonzalez Gonzalez was able to get back to fighting his fight in the 9th and 10th, and came up with great work, carried those rounds with a lot of impressive, precise, short punches as he came forward.

I'm confident in my card, and think this wasn't really hard to score. I think there were no more than three rounds that were close enough to be debatable: the 1st, 10th, and 12th. The 1st was close, but Gonzalez I thought deserved it with more clean punches. The 10th is the round you have to watch closely. Cuadras no way gets it on activity and for Gonzalez tiring when Gonzalez landed so well. I see some gave the 12th to Gonzalez, and if you did there's a 116-112. So 8-4 Gonzalez to a draw makes sense, while giving it to Cuadras just misses how effective Gonzalez was.

There's talk about the HBO team being biased, but I thought Max and Roy did a good job, and were fair and brought up the success of both. It was only Lederman who was full of **** and completely discredited Cuadras.

1Gonzalez
2Gonzalez
3Gonzalez
4Gonzalez
5Cuadras
6Cuadras
7Gonzalez
8Cuadras
9Gonzalez
10Gonzalez
11Cuadras
12Cuadras

115-113 Gonzalez

 

You can judge a fight by how fighter's faces look at the end, but that doesn't take into account:
1)accidental headbutts
2)body punching
3)people's faces don't bruise and swell the same
4)some people's cutmen are better than others
5)fights are scored over 12 rounds and the damage that caused swelling may have taken place in five rounds or fewer

 

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Touché.