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NOTES FROM THE BOXING UNDERGROUND: THE CANELO-GOLOVKIN EDITION

By Paul Magno | September 18, 2017
NOTES FROM THE BOXING UNDERGROUND: THE CANELO-GOLOVKIN EDITION

The middleweight “super fight” between Saul Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin has come and gone, leaving behind the usual post-blockbuster chemtrail of fan whining and discontent. Here are a few notes I jotted down from Random City, Georgia in a post-Huricane Irma refugee safe zone:

-- If you saw either Canelo or Golovkin winning a one-sided or decisive decision on Saturday night, you’re just plain wrong. Personally, I had the fight scored a draw at 114-114 and wouldn’t have had a problem with 115-113 either way. But anything beyond that was just you being a fan, scoring a fight LIKE a fan. 

-- And please don’t try to justify your pro-Golovkin score by pointing at media scorecards that almost overwhelmingly saw Triple G winning. You mean the media, which has carried Golovkin around on their shoulders for years, practically fapping themselves raw at his charming manliness, is going to score a close fight in his favor? You don’t say.

-- On a related note, Adalaide Byrd, with her score in favor of Alvarez, was predictably incompetent. But the 118-110 tally was actually a genius outlier. It fuels outrage about the overall decision from pro-Golovkin fans and justifies the belief that Canelo deserved the nod from the pro-Canelo side. I’m not saying that 118-110 was born of anything other than Byrd’s own inability to score a fight, but her shitting of the proverbial bed is actually good for the business of keeping both fan bases red hot until the rematch. 

-- It’s sad, but when you see how many supposedly die-hard fans still don’t understand how to score a fight, it kinda makes you give up hope that we can ever get fair judging in fights. Seeing the chatter on social media from fans who should know better makes you understand that. No matter how many fights they see or how many signed gloves they collect, they’re still “just” fans and will score fights blindly based on their fandom. If they like “Fighter A,” they’ll work overtime to give him the benefit of every possible doubt; If they don’t like “Fighter B,” they’ll find a way to force a loss on him. Saturday’s fight was actually pretty easy to score. Canelo took the early rounds and the late rounds, Golovkin owned the middle rounds. Simple.

-- What I do find funny about the pissing and moaning of the Golovkinites  after this decision is that they had no issue whatsoever with their guy, as the bigger star and stronger earner, getting the benefit of the doubt in close rounds against Daniel Jacobs. But they just won’t stand for Canelo getting that same consideration for the very same reason. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

-- Whether you agree with Saturday’s decision or not, though, you have to admit that Canelo fought pretty well for someone so absolutely scared shitless of the manbeast Golovkin. I’m sure glad they managed to drag him, kicking and screaming, to the ring. 

-- Seriously, though, Alvarez deserves high praise for this fight. He fought the first three or four rounds of the bout at near genius level, absolutely befuddling Golovkin. And then he tenaciously turned back the tide after Golovkin had managed to gain control of the bout in the middle rounds. For those who doubted the kid’s toughness, well, that doubt should be gone.

-- As for Golovkin’s performance Saturday night? Good, solid, HUMAN. Despite the massive hype and male fairytale narrative about Triple G being some all-time great and supernatural creature of supreme destruction, the guy is just a very good middleweight with a fairly well-defined set of limitations. On the “How Good is He” meter, he rates somewhere between Canelo Alvarez and Daniel Jacobs, which isn’t that shabby at all, but hardly beast-like (and absolutely not ATG-level).

-- A big LOL at the “this proves Golovkin is getting old” crew. No, he’s not getting old at 35, with so little actual wear and tear from a career’s worth of mostly soft touches. A third straight not-so-beast-like performance just means that he struggles with those opponents who can box a little and those who refuse to play the role of heavy bag. I’d bet my Dan Rafael lunchbox that GGG looks murderous once again if stacked up against anyone from his pre-Kell Brook days. 

-- Can we finally put Harold Lederman out to pasture? His off-the-mark scoring only serves to mislead fans as to the true nature of the fight on TV. I know it’s mean to be cruel to the elderly, so maybe HBO can stick Harold in a dummy booth with a mic connected to nothing where he can harmlessly prattle on all evening. 

-- And what was this nonsense about Mayweather-McGregor ruining the vibe for Canelo-Golovkin? If anything, having such a high-profile, chat-worthy event taking place just three week earlier likely helped sales. Ideally, boxing should have a major event on tap every three to four weeks. There should never be a lull in the buzz. 

Got a question (or hate mail) for Magno’s Bulging Mail Sack? The best of the best gets included in the weekly mailbag segment right here at FightHype. Send your stuff here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com.

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