By Jeff Aranow: In an outcome that will surely displease many boxing fans, Saul Canelo Alvarez (50-1-2, 34 KOs) defeated previously unbeaten WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin (38-1-1, 34 KOs) by a 12 round majority decision on Saturday night in their rematch on HBO pay-per-view at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
(Photo Credit: Tom Hogan-Hoganphotos/Golden Boy Promotions)
The scores were 114-114 [Glenn Feldman], 115-113 [Dave Moretti], 115-113 [Steve Weisfield] for Canelo. Boxing News 24 had Golovkin winning 116-112. Canelo faded badly in the last four rounds and was hurt in rounds 10 and 11 by big shots from GGG.
You can argue that it’s a good thing for the sport of boxing that the highly popular Canelo won the fight, because he has a lot of fans and he’s a lot younger than the 36-year-old GGG. The 28-year-old Canelo will be around for a long time to come, so it’s good that he won in that sense. I don’t think Canelo won, but he made it close enough to where the judges could give it to him.
It was a good fight. Canelo was late in the fight and he had to battle with injury. A lot of Canelo’s shots were missing, but he was able to land a one or two nice punches in each round. The fight looked a lot like the previous match in which Golovkin landed hard jabs from the outside and getting the better of Canelo with his jab in most of the rounds. The judges seemed to be more focused on Canelo’s aggression and his occasional hard shots that were landing. Golovkin might have hurt his chances of winning the fight with the way that he was backing up when Canelo would come forward. GGG did this in the first fight, and it was a mistake for him to have done that back then. This is something that GGG and his trainer Abel Sanchez should have picked up on so that they didn’t make the same mistake a second time. Against a popular fighter like Canelo fighting in his own venue at the T-Mobile Arena in his favorite city Las Vegas, it was important that Golovkin stand his ground and not back up. Golovkin didn’t do that tonight, so he gave the judges a reason to give the victoryto Canelo. I personally had Golvkin clearly winning the fight. I had I 8 rounds to 4 for Golovkin, but it could have gone 9 rounds to 3 for him as well. Canelo fought well in the first three rounds, but then he faded and was getting the worst of it in rounds 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12.
The victory for Canelo now sets the table for a third fight between him and GGG. The loss for Golovkin had him hopping mad tonight, and he’s going to want to get a chance to avenge it. As much as Canelo might want to wash his hands with Golovkin and move on due to the bad blood that he had, he really can’t do that if he doesn’t want to see his paydays drop off the side of a cliff. There’s no one else for Canelo to fight that will give him anywhere near the same kind of money he can make fighting Golovkin. If Canelo doesn’t know that by now, he will surely when his promoters at Golden Boy breaks that down for him. Canelo either fights Golovkin or he has to get in the trenches to face tough fighters interim World Boxing Council middleweight champion Jermall Charlo.
The WBC is likely going to order Canelo to defend his newly won WBC title against Charlo, who is the mandatory challenger for the belt and has been waiting patiently on the sidelines to fight for the belt. If Canelo decides to vacate the WBC title rather than face Charlo, it would be the second time that he’s vacated the belt after being ordered to defend it against a mandatory. The WBC will likely allow Canelo to face Golovkin in a third fight, but they’re probably not going to turn their backs and let him face the likes of David Lemieux or Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan.
