It was billed as a potential fight of the decade and certainly Gennady Golovkin vs Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez didn't disappoint last night but unfortunately it wasn't without it's bit of controversy on the scorecards.
Boxing has seen some big nights and some big fights this year already and last night was one of the biggest and best so far with two fights on British soil that impressed followed by the big one in Las Vegas.
First Callum Smith beat the previously unbeaten Erik Skoglund in a very good match-up in the World Boxing Super Series super-middleweight quarter final, then Billy Joe Saunders beat Willie Monroe Jr. to retain his WBO middleweight title finally though was the fight we'd all been waiting for.
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Billy Joe Saunders would love a crack at Canelo or GGG but the pair may have a rematch first. Image: PA
GGG and Canelo are two of the best boxers in the world and with the rest of the middleweight titles between them there was a lot of promise in the fight and it delivered. It was a very tight fight with most people having GGG just ahead.
But one judge somehow scored it 118-110 to Canelo and caused plenty of controversy as the pair fought to a draw:
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Credit: Yahoo Sports
It was Adalaide Byrd's scoring that caused so much controversy. Dave Moretti had the GGG two rounds up and Don Trella gave it as a draw, with the fight so close it was difficult to argue, but Byrd had Canelo eight rounds up only giving the Kazakh the fourth and seventh.
And now one was happy with the way that Byrd had scored it:
Even on a great night for the sport somehow boxing manages to make controversy the top headline which is a huge shame.
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One plus side is that the result probably means the pair will fight again and after last night that is a very good thing, the only problem for GGG is if the rematch is on Cinco de Mayo weekend then he'll have an even harder time of getting a result on the cards.
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