Saul Canelo Álvarez and Gennady Golovkin closed the book on an exciting and controversial trilogy at the weekend. Canelo won the 12 rounder convincingly – making the final score tally 2 wins for him, zero for Golovkin, and one draw.
Despite his acceptance in the ring following the judges’ decision, Golovkin seemed to have a slight change of heart as the result sank in. During the post-fight press conference, he said that he doesn’t feel that he lost the fight.
“I don’t feel like I lost the fight. I don’t think about the loss, it’s not something that’s on my mind right now because it was a great fight and it was a very clean fight as noticed. We did not allow any mistakes and the fight was very competitive.
Especially the second half. I felt that I did better than my opponent.”
Although punch stats don’t tell the full story of a fight, it’s worth noting that Canelo landed 85 power punches to Golovkin’s 46, according to CompuBox. It was noticeable in the fight, with ‘Triple G’ having little success building on his jab for the majority.
Golovkin did indeed have more about him in the second half, although arguably it wasn’t until the ninth round that this really paid off for him. Álvarez, despite his opponent’s late rally, wasn’t hurt or in trouble.
It kept things competitive but, in the minds of most fans, Canelo had already won should it go to the judges.
Asked about how Canelo may have improved from their previous fights and if the higher weight was noticeable, Golovkin didn’t see much.
“I don’t want to belittle his victory, but at the same time I did not feel like he was any faster or stronger. The shots that reached were not strong enough and, in the second half, he even lost [some] speed and power.”
There’s a majority feeling in boxing that, in their previous fights, Golovkin has been hard done by when it comes to scorecards.
Ironically, the trilogy fight saw the tables turned. Fans and fighters alike feel that the judges – especially the two who had it 115-113 – called the fight too close, believing Canelo’s win to be much more decisive.
Golovkin addressed this, likely tired of scorecard talk given what happened in 2017 and 2018.
“It’s not up to me to talk about scoring. I just did my job and the judges came up with those scores. That’s their decision.”
‘Triple G’ plans to drop back down to middleweight, where he will defend his unified titles.