By Jim Dower: According to Bernard Hopkins of Golden Boy Promotions, the boxing fans don’t feel that IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) was robbed of a decision win in his fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) last Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Hopkins says Canelo deserved the decision win by 7 rounds to 5 score. Hopkins promotes Canelo. Hopkins can repeat his thoughts about Canelo deserving the win as much as he wants, but he’s not going to convince the boxing world that this is the truth. The fans saw the Canelo vs. GGG fight last Saturday, so they can think for themselves. Hopkins isn’t going to change the views of fans by saying Canelo deserved to win.
The judges scored the fight a 12-round draw by the scores 118-110 for Canelo, 115-113 for Triple G and 114-114.
Hopkins says he’s not hearing anyone saying that Golovkin was robbed. Hopkins says he received a lot of e-mail from people raving about what a good fight the Canelo-Golovkin fight was. Hopkins feels that the only reason some of the boxing fans are upset is because of the wide score by the judge that scored it 10 rounds to 2 in favor of Canelo. If the fight had been scored closer, but still in Canelo’s favor, Hopkins says the boxing fans would have been comfortable with that. Canelo winning the fight over Golovkin wouldn’t have been an upsetting thing for the boxing world, as long as the scores weren’t wide like the 118-110 score, says Hopkins. On the contrary, the fans would be even angrier at a Canelo win than they are with him getting a draw. The fact is, the fans felt that Canelo lost the fight to Golovkin. The scores being closer wouldn’t have changed anything if Golovkin wasn’t given the ‘W’ against Canelo. It’s surprising that Hopkins is unable to see that. Is Hopkins deliberately being obtuse or does he really believe that the fans would be able to live with Canelo getting the decision over Golovkin. It would have been REALLY bad if the judges had given Canelo the win with the way he moving away from Golovkin all night, and looking exhausted.
“I thought Canelo [won]. I think it was 7-5,” said Hopkins. “I thought Canelo did enough to win. He won convincing against the champion. Canelo was doing things that nobody has seen done against Triple G. Triple G had spots, but in other rounds, he looked like he was 35. So when you have close rounds and you have a guy with a rep of being a monster and you survive that, you’re going to get some close rounds,” said Hopkins.
A great deal of boxing fans and members of the media disagree with Hopkins’ opinion of Canelo deserving the win. As of Sunday, the fans and journalists are saying that Golovkin did enough to win the fight by 8 rounds to 4 score. Very few fans are saying Canelo deserved a draw, and even fewer are saying he deserved a victory. Golovkin did not fight like he was 35. He fought like he was in his 20s, and Canelo was the one laboring, turning red-faced and unable to fight at the fast pace that Golovkin was setting in the fight. Normally an older fighter would be the one that would be exhausted fighting a younger 27-year-old guy, but in this case, the roles were reversed.
Golovkin was the fresher fighter with the superior stamina, pressing an exhausted younger fighter in Canelo and forcing him to fight harder than his 5’8 ½” body would let him. Canelo could only will his body to fight in spurts. It wasn’t just the game plan to move that limited Canelo’s ability to stand and fight. It was Canelo’s conditioning. In each round, Canelo would fight hard at the start of the round, but then he would exhaust himself and wind up running from Golovkin, and looking fatigued. All the rounds were played in the same way. Golovkin didn’t fight like he was 35. Hopkins has things mixed up in his head when saying Golovkin looked 35. It was more like Canelo fighting like he was 40. I wouldn’t even say Canelo fought like he was 35, because there are some guys that are still fighting at an elevated level at that age. Canelo was fighting like a 40-year-old, and making the fight boring to watch with his movement.
”He boxed the brakes off his [expletive],” said Hopkins about Canelo boxing Golovkin instead of fighting him. ”Nobody is saying Triple G got robbed. I don’t think people would say that Triple G got robbed if the score was closer than it should have been and Canelo won. The majority of the people would have lived with that decision. So the only controversy is the score that was so apart from reality that makes the fight look the way it did,” said Hopkins.
I think Hopkins is WAY off by saying Canelo “boxed the brakes” off Golovkin. That’s not the fight that I saw Golovkin was jabbing Canelo and connecting with a lot of nice head shots that he couldn’t get out of the way of. Canelo was forced to run because he literally couldn’t stand in one position and fight Golovkin due to the Kazakhstan fighter’s longer reach, fast pace, and powerful punches. Canelo would have wilted if he had to stand and fight Golovkin the way that he wanted him to in the “Mexican style”. Canelo didn’t possess the stamina to stand and fight. He had to get on his bike to run out the clock in the rounds. The judges that worked the fight seemed to have an off night with all of them handing in scores that didn’t jibe with the fight that took place.
”Canelo won 7 out of 12 rounds,” said Hopkins. ”I know whose declining and I know who’s getting better. Canelo, if they fight again, will make it look so easy, it will erase any doubts except the scorecards in anybody’s mind,” said Hopkins in predicting an easy win for Canelo in the rematch against GGG.
I don’t see either fighter as declining. Golovkin and Canelo are still in their primes of their careers. When Canelo is 35, I doubt seriously that he’s going to be a major player in boxing at middleweight. I don’t see Canelo aging well. He’s not a huge puncher at 160, and he can’t fight hard for a full 12 rounds. But more importantly, Canelo doesn’t have the height and reach to be able to fight at a distance. There are taller guys than the 5’10 ½” Golovkin in the middleweight division, and you can bet they’re going to sit back and jab Canelo to pieces if they fight him. Danny Jacobs would do a job on Canelo if he faces him soon, which I don’t think he will.
”Huge in May,” said Hopkins in saying the rematch between Canelo and Golovkin will take place in May of 2018 if the rematch takes place.
It sounds like Canelo will be fighting someone else in December rather than Golovkin. Golden Boy hasn’t said who they want to match him against, but Miguel Cotto and David Lemieux are both feasible options. Oscar De La Hoya wanted Cotto to fight Lemieux in December, and then the winner of that fight face Canelo. However, Cotto hasn’t shown any interested in taking De La Hoya up on his offer. If Cotto doesn’t get the Canelo fight, then he could find up facing lightweight Mikey Garcia in December. That’s a winnable fight for Cotto, but not a fight that would likely sell due to it being a mismatch. Mikey would have to move up 3 divisions to fight Cotto. If Canelo doesn’t face Cotto in December, then you would have to think that either Lemieux or WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders would be the guy that he winds up facing.