WRONG MAKES RIGHT
Bad scorecard leads to uproar, but GGG-Canelo result correct
LAS VEGAS — Sometimes your wildly misdirected drive bounces off a tree and onto the fairway, leaving an open shot to the green. Sometimes your jump shot hits the back of the iron, goes straight up, straight down and through the hoop. Sometimes your slap shot is off the mark but finds a skate blade, changes direction and hits the back of the net.
Sometimes you do wrong, but things go right.
That’s how it was for Adalaide Byrd and boxing Saturday night.
Byrd’s woefully incompetent scorecard left even promoter Oscar De La Hoya scratching his head, even though her 118-110 score was for his fighter, Canelo Alvarez. That she could see a way to have Alvarez the winner over undefeated middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin was not totally farfetched, but the margin was ridiculous.
The result of it, though, allowed the ringside judges to get it right after Dave Moretti scored it 115-113 for Golovkin and Don Trella had it 114-114. That made it a draw, which was exactly how the Herald saw it.
Golovkin did not deserve to lose his title after a 12-round pitched battle between the two best middleweights in the world, but Alvarez didn’t deserve to see his opponent’s hand raised either. They got what they’d earned, which was a strong argument for a rematch and no transfer of the title.
Unfortunately, this was achieved because Byrd watched a fight that did not exist.
Byrd’s shanked scorecard led the sellout crowd of 22,358, a T-Mobile Arena record for boxing, to boo lustily when Alvarez began a postfight interview. That reaction was as addled as Byrd’s judgment. Alvarez had nothing to do with her vision and had just finished a toeto-toe final round and late fight rally that closed the gap Golovkin had opened in the middle of the fight.
Despite being the smaller man, Alvarez stood up to the allegedly heavy-handed Golovkin’s best punches while trapped round after round on the ropes, then fought back with hard body shots and a blistering right hand in the 10th round that wobbled Golovkin and knocked him into retreat. So there should be no beef with him.
Golovkin had never been knocked off his feet in over 300 amateur fights and 37 professional ones, and Alvarez did not change that — but it was the first time the champion appeared hurt in a prize fight. From that moment on, Alvarez took the play away from him as both men showed clear signs of tiring in the final rounds but no sign of failing hearts.
“I wanted to finish him but he was a strong opponent,” Alvarez said. “A complicated opponent but not the monster others said.”
The final three rounds were competitive, back-and-forth battles often fought at close quarters with each giving as good as he got. In the end, they evened the score between them. So despite Byrd’s scorecard heading for the woods, somehow the result ended up in the middle of the fistic fairway.
That did not change the bewilderment at what Byrd had just (not) seen, though. De La Hoya was elated that his man had not been defeated and that the fight’s artistic success set up a potentially lucrative rematch next year, but he was baffled by Byrd’s card and understood the shadow her scoring cast over the event.
“What was that?” De La Hoya said. “People are scratching their heads. They’re confused. 118-110? I’m shocked.”
Unfortunately boxing has had too many such cards, and Nevada State Athletic Commission executive director Bob Bennett seemed to recognize that immediately, making an unusual visit to press row to try and explain Byrd’s card.
Initially he tried to defend her, claiming she’d judged 115 world title fights and eliminators and was normally within in an acceptable range of her colleagues. But as he was peppered with questions as harshly as Golovkin and Alvarez had peppered each other, he was forced to make an in-fight adjustment, finally saying, “I’m not going to put her right back in. She’ll still be in the business but she needs to catch her breath. She needs a small break.”
In five rounds that Moretti and Trella scored for Golovkin, Byrd awarded each to Alvarez. That led Bennett to remark, “Like in any profession, you have a bad night. Unfortunately, she didn’t do well. I can tell you she conducts training for us, takes judges under her wing … but her score was too wide.”
It was unfortunate Byrd’s point of view detracted from what Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KO) and Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KO) accomplished. After a predictably cautious start, Golovkin began to assert himself in the fourth round as Alvarez slowed down his movement and went — sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not — to the ropes. There the 35-year-old Golovkin wailed away at him but without the same snap on his punches that had until his last two fights led to 23 straight knockouts and 18 consecutive title fight victories.
From time to time, Alvarez would catch him with some hard counters, body shots that could not be ignored, and at one point an uppercut to the point of the chin that snapped the champion’s head back. Were Alvarez more heavyhanded that might have ended the night, but he has never been a onepunch knockout artist.
“I’m pressing him every round,” Golovkin insisted. “Every round he’s moving, not staying close by me. That is a surprise. I bring the Mexican style. He dancer.”
If so Alvarez must have done the polka on Golovkin’s mug, because after the fight the champion’s left eye was red, welts dotted his forehead, his cheekbones were puffy and his lip was cut. It takes a dangerous dance partner to do all that.
What Alvarez showed was he’s a tough hombre with a stout chin and a willingness to fight back when trouble is brewing. After nine rounds it appeared he was tiring, as Golovkin continually closed the gap on him and scored at close quarters. But midway through the 10th, Alvarez landed a perfect right hand that sent the sweat spinning off Golovkin’s head and flying halfway across the ring. It seemed the champion’s head might follow.
Golovkin staggered back, his balance momentarily off, but quickly recovered even as Alvarez assaulted him with two rapid-fire combinations. From that moment on, the two went after each other with the controlled fury of champions, each taking the best from the other and answering back in kind.
Alvarez, eight years younger and now the fresher man, turned up the tempo of his offense, but the champion returned fire until only three minutes remained with the outcome still in doubt.
It was then that Alvarez abandoned his normal counterpunching and went on the offensive, scoring with hard combinations in the middle of the ring that had the crowd in a frenzy. Yet Golovkin remained calm and by the end the two stood facing each other, lobbing bombs that might turn the night in their favor as the crowd stood with 15 seconds to go, roaring its approval.
That moment was boxing’s best advertisement for itself, even after Adalaide Byrd’s scorecard was announced. The sad part was she had made seeing that more difficult.