The much-anticipated fight between Saul Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin has come and gone but has left in its wake a lot controversy regarding the decision of the judges. Who ruled that the bout was a draw! Both parties believed they had won the fight when the final bell rang in the 12th round.
Saul Alvarez had a sad look on his face when asked if he won the much anticipated fight. During the post-match interview he was asked if he would like a rematch and the look on Golovkin’s face clearly showed that he believed his rival was delusional.
The result were even more surprising by the fact that the scorecards were remotely different as the judges gave contrasting scores. One judge, Adelaide Byrde surprisingly gave the fight to Canelo 118-110, the other two judges scored it 115-113 Golovkin, and Don Trella’s 114-114. These odd scored triggered the draw and also put into effect the rematch clause. That means this huge fight which generated loads of money for the Nevada Sports Athletic Commission will be fought again. This is a clear conflict of interest and it explains why the governing body was widely criticized after the fight.
The boxing community and other boxing legends believe Golovkin had done more than enough to earn himself a win. Which would have continued his unbeaten record 33-0.
Teddy Atlas is among those to accuse the charges. With this memorable rant accusing boxing with corruption.
“There’s money to be made in the casino business, but there is an oversight board to make sure there is no corruption. There’s no oversight board in boxing,” an enraged Atlas shouted. “There’s no commission. There’s no national commission. No federal guidelines. Nobody looking and saying, ‘Ah, can’t-do that! Oh, can’t-do that! You can’t be charge! Promoter can’t be in charge of who the judges are going to be! No, of course, you want these judges. You can’t be in charge; we’re in charge. We’re going to oversee it, we’re going to police it, we’re going to make sure that there’s no corruption.’ There’s nothing.”
He makes a good point and it is believed that a national commission would lead to a more objective even result. As it stands, the sport is slowly losing its credibility. And the fact that the NAC hierarchy sees nothing wrong with this kind of result makes it even worse.
Personalities from boxing to MMA to wrestling all aired their views that the decision was either incompetent or rigged.
Do you think this fight was rigged?