The megafight between Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas delivered for the fans on Saturday night.
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Judge Dave Moretti scored it 115-113 for Golovkin and Don Trella had it 114-114. The second fight took place in June, also in Las Vegas, and saw Ward stop Kovalev in eight rounds.
Challenger Alvarez fought well enough to win on his own but Adalaide Byrd’s mind-boggling scorecard fuelled conspiracy theories on social media.
However, despite the blowing the scoring, NSAC executive director Bob Bennett defended her and stated he considers her to be an outstanding judge and still has full confidence in her. He said he’ll order a meeting to discuss the card with Byrd, who has scored more than 100 title fights, according to Bennett. I was able to counterpunch and even make Gennady wobble a couple of times. “Unfortunately, and I’m responsible for it, Adalaide had a bad night”. I’m not making any excuses. I think she’s an outstanding judge, and in any business, sometimes you have a bad day. Tonight we saw GGG the middleweight king fight Canelo the lineal middleweight champion.
Former world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis tweeted: “Both fighters can hold their heads high tonight but this fight wasn’t close to a draw!” The two were asked about a rematch and Canelo said he would be interested if the people want one.
Alvarez also seems keen, adding: “Yes, of course, obviously yes, if the people want it, yes”. He didn’t win. It was a draw. A true fight. I have my belts.
“I didn’t base it on the scorecard, I wasn’t taking points round-by-round but what I am sure of at the end of the fight was that I won”, said the 27-year-old. “This was a real fight”.
Inevitably, the fighters differed on who should have left with Golovkin’s IBF, WBA and WBC belts.
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The result leaves Golovkin with a 37-0-1 career record, while Alvarez is 49-1-2, his only loss coming against Floyd Mayweather in 2013.
