By Amos: Boxing fans had the pleasure to witness the highly anticipated WBC & WBA Junior Middleweight unification bout between Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) and Austin “No Doubt” Trout (26-1, 14 KO’s). It was the fight which declared Saul “Canelo” Alvarez as the undisputed champion of the division.
However, after watching the fight, Austin Trout acknowledges he needed to do much, much more in order to decisively win the fight. Trout believed he would be able to out-box Canelo and completely dominate the fight to win a “lopsided decision.” However, Canelo surprised the boxing public and even Trout with an improved defense and footwork which had not been seen before. Canelo did not merely come forward and had a much different game plan than some writers thought he would have. Particular writers have gone off to say how close the fight was (or how lopsided it was) in Trout’s favor. However, it was those same writers who claimed Canelo would be COMPLETELY out-boxed due to his poor footwork and lack of defense. Those some writers have not mentioned his flat-footedness and lack of defense again.
In his interview with I Film London, Austin Trout said: “I felt like I won the fight. It’s a biased opinion though. In ALL honesty it was close, they could’ve gave it to [Canelo] a round or so you know or draw even. The wide margin they had, I thought it was total BS. And I want a rematch.”
Austin Trout himself sees how the fight was close and completely understands why Canelo or he would have won the fight by a round or two. This writer watched the fight with a split audience of Canelo fans, Trout fans, and fans who had no alignment. We all saw an extremely close fight (point based) and scored the fight 114-113 Canelo. However, Canelo was clearly the winner. The judge’s scorecards did not do the fight justice and truly reflect just how competitive the first fight was. There was one particular writer on a boxing news site that had scored the fight 10-2 Trout. That writer saw a completely different fight or was extremely biased.
Trout again stresses the fact the fight was close and acknowledges those who scored for Canelo: “Well again I think the fight was close, I could see it being a draw or even me being giving A round or something. But due to the circumstances that I agreed to fight under I didn’t do enough to win.”
Trout did not undermine himself on fight night by saying “the better man won.” In the heat of the moment, which is all that matters since he was the one fighting in the ring with Canelo, he felt the fight was close and respectfully gave it to Canelo. He did have a clue of how the fight looked because he was the one fighting! Trout says he won the fight but acknowledges “It’s a biased opinion though”.
Austin Trout now has much competition to fight Canelo Alvarez as Canelo aims to fight on September against either long awaited Miguel Cotto or #1 P4P Floyd Mayweather Jr. Should Trout fight Canelo again of course there’s going to be different judges. The open scoring has received much backlash so it’s unsure if the WBC will regularly utilize it. Canelo might understandingly not rematch with Trout as he wants to continue forward with the fights he has been wanting to make but hasn’t due to upsets by Austin Trout and Josesito Lopez. In the meantime both Trout and Alvarez have the opportunity to go their separate ways to gain more experience and exposure before a possible rematch.
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