By Dan Ambrose: Tom Loeffler says he’s going to look closely at the officials for the Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez vs. Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin rematch to make sure the second fight isn’t marred by controversial scoring like the previous contest last September. That fight ended in a 12 round draw at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Loeffler states that the results of the fight last September hurt Golovkin in the negotiations for the second fight. Instead of Loeffler going into the rematch negotiations with Golden Boy in a position of strength from his fighter GGG having beaten Canelo, Team Golovkin went into the negotiations in the same position as in the first fight. Canelo had the upper hand once again despite having lost the first fight in eyes of the boxing public.
Earlier on Thursday, the venue for the Canelo-Golovkin rematch was announced for their May 5th fight. The bout will be staged at the T-Mobile Arena again. The fight will go back to the same venue as the first fight, which makes Golden Boy Promotions and Canelo Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) happy. That’s the place that they were aiming for from the start of the negotiations.
”Everybody I know of thought Gennady won the seventh,” Loeffler said to Yahoo Sports News. ”If he scores that round correctly, there isn’t an issue. But we feel Gennady’s career was definitely damaged by the scoring and it affected negotiations for the rematch. We will take a much closer look at the officials this time.”
The scoring by the judges for the first Canelo-Golovkin fight was as follows:
• 118-110 (for Canelo) – Adalaide Byrd
• 115-113 (for Golovkin) – Dave Moretti
• 114-114 – Don Trella
Boxing News 24 had Golovkin winning by a wide score of 9 rounds to 3. Canelo, 27, did the best he could, but he was only able to put together three rounds where he fought well enough to win the rounds conclusively. Golovkin gave Canelo rounds 1 and 2 by default by not throwing punches. Golovkin took over the fight in round 3 and outworked and out-boxed Canelo through the 11th round. Canelo went all out in round 12 to barely win the round. That was Canelo using up his last energy stores to pull out the 12th. With good scoring by a set of top level judges, Canelo would have likely lost by 4 to 6 rounds.
Loeffler feels that judge Don Trella’s decision to give Canelo round 7 was the most controversial aspect of the fight last September. In looking at the 7th round, Canelo was taking a beating from an angry Golovkin for the full 3 minutes. Trella giving Canelo that round changed the results of the fight from a loss for the Mexican star to a 12 round draw. Trella’s scoring of the 7th in favor of Canelo saved the red-headed Mexican star from his second career defeat.
“Well, we know she (Adalaide Byrd) won’t be judging this fight. But you know what; I don’t think we can put the entire blame on her. I don’t know how Don Trella scored the seventh round for Canelo,” Loeffler said.
Byrd, Trella and Moretti will not be working the Canelo vs. Golovkin 2 rematch on May 5th. Moreover, referee Kenny Bayless will not be working the fight as well. You can argue that Bayless played a part in the outcome as well by warning Golovkin not to throw body shots to the back of Canelo. Bayless failed to see that Canelo was turning his back to Golovkin when he would throw body shots. This move by Canelo to turn his back to Golovkin appeared to be a strategy to get the referee to step in and stop Golovkin from throwing body shots by telling him that he’s throwing punches to the back. Had Bayless been watching the fight closely, he would have seen that Canelo was turning his back to Golovkin when he would throw body shots that he would receive a warning and then potentially lose points. It worked for Canelo, as Golovkin stopped throwing body shots out of fear that he would get a point deducted by the referee Kenny Bayless. So when you look back at the Canelo-Golovkin fight, Trella and Bayless both played a part in the fight winding up as a draw instead of a win for Golovkin. If Bayless had warned Canelo to stop turning his back to Golovkin when he would throw body shots, then he would have felt comfortable that he could continue throwing shots to the 27-year-old Mexican star’s midsection throughout the fight. If Trella had given Golovkin the 7th round, as many boxing fans believe this was his best round of the fight, then Canelo would have the lost the fight.
It’s unclear how many challenges Loeffler will have to remove the judges and/or referee that the Nevada State Athletic Commission picks out to work the Canelo vs. Gennady fight on May 5th. If all the selections are bad by the Commission, then Loeffler may get stuck with a set of judges that are similar to the previous ones that worked the first fight. Golovkin might be stuck having to go all out for a knockout of Canelo to make sure the 3 judges that are selected by the Nevada Commission aren’t able to score the fight.
Golovkin is saying that he’s going to make sure the fight is so conclusive that there’s no way the judges will mess up the results of the second fight.
“It feels right that the rematch returns to the scene of the crime,” Golovkin said. “This time, there will be no drama with a decision. I won the first fight and left the ring as world champion wearing all the belts. And I’m going to win the second fight.”
There it is. Golovkin is saying there won’t be a draw for the rematch with Canelo in terms of the decision. That sounds to me like Golovkin’s goal is to knock Canelo out and leave the Nevada Commission assigned judges to sit as spectators. It’s for the best that Golovkin does take matters into his own hands, as this is Canelo’s venue. He’s the one that fights in Las Vegas every time. Golovkin is the visitor. To beat the home fighter, it often requires the visiting fighter to knock them out.