By Sean Jones: The fans are still very angry about the results of the Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin rematch this month on September 15, according to GGG’s trainer Abel Sanchez. He says the fans saw Golovkin winning the fight, and they’re deeply upset about Canelo being given a controversial 12 round majority decision in a fight that was televised on HBO pay-per-view and took place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
This was the second fight between GGG and Canelo that was staged in Las Vegas, and a lot of boxing fans now feel that Golovkin was robbed again. Initially Sanchez didn’t complain about the results of the second fight. He says he didn’t want to seem like a complainer, because he had made so many complaints about the first Canelo-Golovkin fight that took place last year on September 16 in Vegas.
In that fight, Canelo was given a 12 round draw that by the Nevada judges. The scoring by the judges seemed to be VERY generous in favor of Canelo, who was lucky to receive the draw because he had spent he vast majority of the fight with his back against the ropes, being picked off by Golovkin’s judges. The judges that gave Canelo the draw were giving him rounds in which he was out-landed by a significant number by Golovkin.
“Golovkin can box. He had over 350 amateur fights,” Abel Sanchez said to Ring Magazine. “His boxing is very effective. I can’t see how they [the judges] could see the [Canelo vs. GGG2] fight and have it even going into the 12th. The 12th should not have been the deciding round. I didn’t complain on the night because [I thought], ‘Here we go again.’ I think the outrage in the public’s eyes and the people that have watched it again is enough or has been so strong that Oscar [De La Hoya] had to come out with some kind of crazy letter to try and excuse it,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez feels that the three judges scored the fight for Canelo based on him coming forward as the aggressor without them giving Golovkin credit for the boxing that he was doing in the fight. The judges seemed to be impressed with Canelo moving forward, and that appeared to be more than enough for them to give him the victory. In other words, Canelo just walking forward was enough for the judges to give the highly popular Mexican fighter the win without him doing anything special in the fight.
Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions wrote a letter to the boxing public defending Canelo against the many fans that were criticizing his victory on social media after the fight. It seemed desperate on De La Hoya’s part to take on the many critics of the results of the fight, because no matter what he said, he wasn’t going to be able to change the opinion of the fans who had watched the fight and felt that Golovkin should have been given the victory.
”I think unfortunately we’re losing fight fans because of decisions like this,” Sanchez said. ”Yes, it was a close fight. He [Golovkin] didn’t lose. He just didn’t get the decision. The first fight was not as decisive because there was no action. In this fight because of the boxing Gennady did, I had it 7-5. The outrage in social media was enough to convince me that I was right,” Sanchez said.
Canelo-Golovkin2 brought in 1.1 million pay-per-view buys for their September 15 fight HBO. While this number is down from the 1.3 million buys the first Canelo vs. Golovkin fight brought in last year in September, the rematch is still expected to bring in more revenue than the $125 million from the first fight. The current number for Canelo-GGG2 is $117.5 million. When the numbers are fully tabulated, they’re expected to go beyond $125 million for the first fight.
“We are not going to distribute the final numbers, but according to the great box office and a successful pay-per-view sale, as well as the digital explosion of pay-per-view, Canelo-Golovkin II was more successful than its predecessor,” from a message by Golden Boy Promotions to ESPN about the Canelo-GGG2.
There are a lot of very unhappy boxing fans with the results of the Canelo-GGG2 rematch. They felt that Golovkin deserved the victory, and they’re quite confused how the judges came to the conclusion that Canelo rated the victory. It’s unclear whether the questionable decision will hurt boxing as a whole in terms of PPV sales and ratings. What it could hurt is the PPV buys the trilogy fight between Canelo and Golovkin in 2019. Since both of the first two fights between them have ended in controversial decisions, it’s possible that the boxing public won’t trust the process and will be reluctant to see a third fight between them. But both fighters have already made so much money from their first two fights, they might not mind that their third fight fails to bring in the same amount of PPV buys. Neither fighter has a big enough name for them to fight to bring in more PPV buys at the moment.
”He took it hard,” Sanchez said about Golovkin being so upset with the judges’ results. ”Disappointed, disillusioned and saddened about what had just happened. He thought it was best not to create a scene,” Sanchez said in explaining why Golovkin left the ring immediately after the scores were announced for his rematch with Canelo Alvarez.
Golovkin being upset is natural. It’s one thing to be on the receiving end of a controversial decision that results in the fight being scored a draw, but another thing altogether Golovkin winding up as the loser in losing his WBA/WBO middleweight titles. The questionable judging from the Nevada judges cost Golovkin his title and his unbeaten record. Could this have been avoided if GGG’s promoter Tom Loeffler had done a better job negotiating the rematch to have the fight staged outside of Nevada in New York or Texas.
“There was no anger. I think these guys are separated by only one round in the first fight, and one round in the second fight,” Sanchez said about Canelo and Golovkin not being separated by much in their two fights. ”That’s how well matched these two guys are, so I can see a trilogy fight coming.”
The two fighters are technically separated by just one round in both of the fights, but in the eyes of the boxing public, Golovkin won both fights and by more than one round. Sanchez saw the first Canelo-GGG fight 8-4 in GGG’s favor, and the second one 7-5 in GGGs favor. Those are scores that many boxing fans agree with.
Golovkin, 36, looked upset after the results of the Canelo rematch were announced moments after the fight. Golovkin left the ring right away rather than be available for an interview by HBO.
”Something has to happen to keep this [controversial decisions] from happening,” Sanchez said. ”This has happened twice. The fans have been in an uproar about the decision. It’s not the first time in Vegas, and it won’t be the last time. Something needs to change where the right man wins, according to the fans. Millions of fans can’t be wrong. The fans that are watching replays can’t be wrong. Something needs to be done so we don’t keep losing fans,.” Sanchez said.
There’s really not much boxing fans can do about the controversial decisions. That’s more up to the promoters and the boxing commissions to police the poor judging. The promoters can do their part to rejecting judges for their fighters by telling the State Commission that they refuse to have them work their fights. Eventually, the Commission should be responsive in letting the bad judges go and keep the competent ones. It would also help if promoters steered around the states that are known for having lots of controversial decisions. Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler could have refused to have GGG fight Canelo in Las Vegas in the second fight. If he had done that, then the three Nevada State Athletic Commission assigned judges that gave Canelo the win on September 15 wouldn’t have worked the fight. Staging the Canelo-GGG2 fight in another state like New York, California or Texas would have given the two fighters and their teams a fresh start. Going back to Las Vegas for the second fight after what had transpired in the first Canelo-GGG fight last year in September was frankly a mistake for Team Golovkin. They should have seen his coming ahead of time and made sure that they didn’t put themselves in position to get beaten by a controversial decision in Vegas. After all, Las Vegas is Canelo’s favor city to fight. Team GGG knew that, and yet they still chose to fight in Vegas. On top of that, they agreed to fight on a Mexican holiday, which meant that the crowd would likely be pro-Canelo. There are a lot of little things that Golovkin’s team did in negotiating the fight that led to them losing the fight. Had they been assertive in the negotiations and insisting that the fight take place in another state instead of Nevada.
”A respected man named Al Bernstein [of Showtime] made a comment on one of the social media platforms, saying he watched the 12th round without the announcers and, ‘How the heck could they give it to Canelo,’ is what he said. ‘Golovkin won the round easy,’” Sanchez said.
Bernstein was one of the many people that saw the 12th round going to Golovkin in the rematch instead of Canelo. Two of the judges gave Canelo the 12th round, which turned out to be the round that gave him the win. If the judges had given the round for Golovkin, the fight would have been ruled a draw.
It was difficult to see Canelo winning round 12 because Golovkin landed the biggest shots in the round. Canelo looked like he was gassed out and fighting on fumes in round 12. He’d been dominated by GGG in rounds 8, 9, 10 and 11. In the 12th, Canelo attacked GGG hard to try and win the round, but his power wasn’t there on his shots like they were earlier in the fight. In contrast, Golovkin’s shots appeared to be much harder and he was the fresher fighter during the round, even though his face looked more beaten up.
For the time being, both fighters are going their separate ways for their next fights. Canelo will be fighting on December 15, potentially against fellow Golden Boy fighter David Lemieux at Madison Square Garden in New York. Golovkin will be out for the remainder of 2018. His next fight date is unknown at this time. Sanchez and promoter Tom Loeffler have both talked of wanting to match Golovkin against WBA secondary middleweight champion Ryota Murata or Billy Joe Saunders. Golovkin might wind up fighting someone completely different from those guys, however. It will depend on who’s available in the first part of 2019, and whether Loeffler wants to put GGG in a risky fight. Matching Golovkin against the winner of the Sergiy Derevyanchenko vs. Daniel Jacobs fight will give GGG a chance to recapture his IBF middleweight title that was stripped from him recently. Getting that title back will help Golovkin in the negotiations for his third fight with Canelo. However, Golovkin needs to be more aggressive if he faces Jacobs than he was in their first fight last year in March, because Golovkin made the fight tougher than it should have been by staying on the outside and boxing for most of the fight. Golovkin’s decision to box Jacobs in the second half of the fight turned out to be a mistake, as it allowed him to come on and win five of the last six rounds to make it close at the end. Canelo’s trainer Eddy Reynoso watched the Golovkin-Jacobs fight and picked up on how GGG wouldn’t stand his ground against Jacobs in the second half of the fight, so he used that strategy for Canelo in his rematch with Golovkin. GGG needs to be a lot more aggressive against Canelo, Jacobs or whoever if he doesn’t want to continue to have fights that are closer than they should be.