Golovkin-Canelo rematch ordered by WBC

By Boxing News - 10/02/2017 - Comments

Image: Golovkin-Canelo rematch ordered by WBC

By Sean Jones: Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) were ordered by the World Boxing Council president Mauricio Sulaiman to face each other in a rematch. The promoters for both fighters, Golden Boy Promotions and Tom Loeffler of K2, have already begun the early stages of a rematch that could take place in the first quarter of next year on Cinco de Mayo holiday on May 5.

What I’m hearing is the WBC ordered the Canelo-GGG rematch so that Golovkin wouldn’t have to face his mandatory Jermall Charlo. It’s unclear if that’s true or not. The WBC ordering the Canelo vs. GGG fight has to be seen as a positive for Golovkin.

The boxing public overwhelmingly saw Golovkin beating Canelo. Most fans appear to have seen Golovkin win 8 rounds to 4, as far as I can tell. Some fans saw it closer at 7-5, but from what I’ve seen, 8-4 seems to be the general consensus. There are, of course, a small handful of boxing fans that thought Canelo deserved the win, but there don’t appear to be many that believe that.

Canelo didn’t fight for Golovkin’s WBC title in their fight on September 16. It’s debatable whether Canelo will elect to fight for the WBC belt in the rematch with GGG. Even if Canelo decides not to fight for the WBC belt, it will still be on the line for the rematch. The WBC belt will fall vacant if Golovkin loses.

The judging for the second fight is a concern for Golovkin and Loeffler, since their previous contest had 2 judges turn in very strange scores of 118-110 for Canelo and 114-114. The scoring didn’t match the fight that took place inside the ring. Loeffler feels that the judges might have been influenced by the crowd noise from the boxing fans on the night. The fans were frequently cheering each time Canelo would throw a punch. Whether the shot landed or not, the fans would cheer.

Loeffler points out that many of Canelo’s punches were being blocked on the gloves of Triple G. He feels that the judges might have ignored the fact that Golovkin was blocking the punches. Instead, the judges simply reacted to the cheering from the pro-Canelo crowd and gave the Mexican star rounds based on crowd noise rather than on what he was actually doing inside the ring.

“We feel that Triple G won the fight,” said Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler to ES News Reporting. “It was a good fight in the ring that actually lived up to the billing. It was in over 200 countries. This is really what the sport of boxing needs. I sat down with Eric Gomez one time. The negotiations have started. Big fights like this take a long time to put together. There are so many big pieces to discuss. The first fight was so successful that it shouldn’t be that complicated to make the second fight because the fans are demanding it, and Triple G wants the fight. Everything I hear is Canelo wants the rematch as well. He can only learn from the fight,” said Loeffler.

The negotiations for the Canelo-GGG rematch could be complicated because Golovkin might want a better deal than the last fight. When a fighter wins, he’s supposed to get a better financial deal in the rematch. With Golovkin failing to get the win due to the unusual scoring by 2 of the judges, it puts him in a position where he and his promoter Loeffler might not be able to justify that they deserve a better deal. That plays into Canelo and Golden Boy’s hands, because they get another big money fight with GGG where they’re the A-side. Things would have evened out in the negotiations if Golovkin had been given the victory the last time out. Canelo would still be getting the lion’s share of the money, but Golovkin would deserve a better deal. The first fight is going to make both fighters a lot of money. The second fight will as well. But if GGG isn’t entitled to a better financial deal for the rematch due to him failing to get the win, then it’s got to be a disappointment for him. Canelo gets another big name to fight to make a ton of money following a very, very controversial draw.

”He was disappointed. He was happy with the fight,” said Loeffler about Golovkin. ”He felt he won the fight. He was disappointed with the judging. That was the only knock on the event, the wide scoring there. It could have been worse with 2 judges that way; then it could have been a disaster. He still has all his titles. He’s still the unified champion and he feels like the world champion. He’s not disappointed with his performance. He’s disappointed with the judging, and he thinks it’s a bad reflection on the sport,” said Loeffler.

Loeffler had to know what Golovkin was stepping into by agreeing to fight Canelo in Las Vegas. Canelo has brought a great many boxing fans to see him fight in Vegas during his career. He’d fought in Vegas 7 times before the Golovkin fight. There’s no question that Canelo has been involved in some huge money fights in Las Vegas during his career. In contrast, Golovkin had never fought in Vegas until the Canelo fight. For all intents and purposes, Vegas was Canelo’s home territory, so it’s not surprising that he would be given a draw in a fight in which he appeared to lose. There’s an old saying that home fighters already start the fight ahead by 4 rounds. If that is true, it would account for Canelo being saved from losing 8 rounds to 4. Starting off with 4 rounds in the bank, you can argue it had Canelo up big time going into round 5. It’s fortunate that Golovkin was able to come back and get a draw.

”I thought Triple G won when I saw it live, and I thought he won more clearly on the replay,” said Loeffler. ”A lot of times the judges react when someone throws a punch and the crowd goes wild, and Triple G is blocking the punches. You could see that he blocked a lot of those punches on his gloves. You can’t take anything away from Canelo’s performance, because I thought Triple G was going to wear him down and stop him late. That’s what Abel thought also. Both guys will make adjustments. If we can do the rematch, both guys will make the adjustments. We expect a better Canelo and a more fine-tuned Triple G. If he won 8 rounds and got a draw, then he’s probably going to win 9 or 10 rounds to get the decision,” said Loeffler about Golovkin needing to go well and above what is normal just to get a decision over Canelo.

Golovkin needed to go after Canelo and knock him out. That was supposed to be the plan for the fight going into it. Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez had highlighted repeatedly before the fight that Golovkin needed to KO Canelo to get the win. Golovkin didn’t fight with enough urgency to make that happen. That’s the one criticism you’ve got to make about Golovkin’s performance against Canelo. It doesn’t matter that Golovkin out-boxed Canelo just like Floyd Mayweather Jr. He needed to knock Canelo out for him to make sure that he judges out of the equation and he failed to do that. Once GGG failed, he should have known before the judges’ scorecards were announced that he wasn’t going to be given the win.

“That judge should be fired,” said Brandon Rios to Fighthype about the judge Adelaide Byrd, who scored the Canelo-GGG fight 118-110 for Canelo. “She shouldn’t judge a fight ever again. That was ridiculous scoring.I’m okay with the draw. Neither fighter did nothing for me to say, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I gave it a draw. I couldn’t see no one winning the fight. If anybody, I probably gave it to Triple G by 1 round. A draw is okay. I see Triple G winning the rematch, because I think he already knows how to fight. It was one of those fights that was crazy. Canelo came in pretty good too. He countered very well, and he blocked well. He already fought him one time and felt the power, so he’s not really worried about it as much as he thought he was going to be. So that’s probably why he was hesitating to get in there. So in the second fight, he might go in there more crazier,” said Rios.

It says a lot that Brandon Rios is picking Golovkin to beat Canelo in the rematch. But it’s quite possible Rios may change his mind as time goes by. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rios is picking Canelo to KO Golovkin in a rout in the rematch. We’re already hearing guys like Danny Garcia and Robert Garcia predicting an easy win for Canelo. They both picked Canelo to win the first, fight against Triple G, and they were wrong. So instead of adjusting their predictions, they’re sticking with Canelo. It’ll be interesting to see if they still stick with Canelo for a third fight if he loses the rematch on May 5.

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