By Hector Gonzalez – Wow! What a fight! For the last hour I’ve been receiving phone calls and exchanging messages with people regarding the outcome of the fight. I get it, the 118-110 card was awful… however, was the fight a draw? If I was to say that I saw at least 3 out of the first 4 rounds for Canelo and the last 3 rounds for Canelo, is that me being bias? That’s actually how I saw the fight. A draw, close to a draw, but not a robbery.
And if GGG hands were raised I wouldn’t be mad, but to call the outcome a robbery for the fight being called a draw is something that I can agree with. It was a competitive fight for both fighters. A close fight and if anything an indicator that’ it’s a shame that GGG was not able to flourish to stardom sooner and that Canelo at 26 is indeed the future of boxing for the next years to come, undoubtedly, he just gave an epic fight in which its arguable that the young champion has not even peaked.
I agree that GGG was the aggressor, specially in the middle rounds. In some of the those middle rounds I actually thought that Canelo was ready to go down or that he was tiring. Golovkin out landed Canelo with jabs but Canelo outlanded him with power punches, specially to the body. More importantly I saw Canelo landing the more accurate flush shots on GGG. I give much credit to GGG though, GGG walked through some of the punches like it was nothing, even uppercuts, GGG was able to walk right through them. However, whether GGG was able to walk through them or not, the point is that the power punches landed, clearly and specially to the body.
In some of the middle rounds GGG was the clear dominant, in fact he was more dominant in the rounds that GGG won then Canelo was dominant in the rounds that he won. But then again, that’s not relevant in the way that boxing is scored. Boxing Is scored on a 10-9 point round system based on whom won the designated round, unless there is a knock down which then would make it a 10-8 round which means a point is subtracted from the fighter whom hit the canvas.
So let’s add it up. If Canelo won at least three of the four opening rounds and won the last 3 which I think he did, then my score card is 114-114 which makes it a draw. So my question to the fans crying robbery is, what does your score card look like and what are your round breakdowns. Let me take it a bit further, can we all agree that this was a great fight, great for boxing, and that after giving so much of themselves in the ring for this even there really isn’t a clear winner or loser.