Home Boxing News What Canelo Alvarez’s Victory Over Gennady Golovkin Showed Us Saturday Night

What Canelo Alvarez’s Victory Over Gennady Golovkin Showed Us Saturday Night

Canelo Alvarez

In what will surely go down as one of the closest and most hard-fought middleweight title fights in boxing history, as well as one of 2018’s best fights of the year, the sport of boxing was able to witness something special in Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin part II.

Facing off inside of the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nev. Alvarez (50-1-2, 34 KO’s) was able to overcome a very strong effort from former champion Gennady Golovkin (38-1-1, 34 KO’s) before capturing a majority decision victory. The action went down inside of the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, the same place as the first match, yet this was a far more better contest.

After 12 rounds of back and forth action, we went to the scorecards, where Alvarez came away with two scorecards (115-113) in his favor, while the third tally had the contest even at 114-114. And, just like that, Alvarez snatched the WBA and WBC middleweight titles from Golovkin, as well as the title of ‘lineal’ middleweight world champion.

“I showed my victory with facts,” said the newly crowned champion Alvarez, who also takes home the prestigious Ring Magazine title.

“He was the one who was backing up,” Alvarez, 28, noted. “I feel satisfied because I gave a great fight. It was a clear victory.”

It was a huge blow for Golovkin, who suffers the first loss of his career despite putting up another strong effort. After the scores were announced, a visibly dejected “GGG” stormed out of the ring, only to head back to his dressing room without giving an immediate interview.

When Golovkin, 36, was finally interviewed, he wouldn’t outright say he was robbed, but he did feel he was the better man inside of the ring.

“I’m not going to say who won tonight, because the victory belongs to Canelo according to the judges,” said Golovkin. “I thought it was a very good fight for the fans and very exciting. I thought I fought better than he did.”

Immediately after the verdict was ruled, fans and insiders alike took to social media to give their view of the action. It should be noted that such figures as Terence Crawford, Manny Pacquiao, and even a visibly irate Teddy Atlas all claimed that Golovkin had done enough to win, even with Atlas crying “robbery”. Yet there were several people who felt that Alvarez deserved the win, with living legend Roy Jones Jr. Noting that Canelo was asked to fight and that’s exactly what he did.

And although many online polls show that Golovkin was the victor in the public’s eyes, that doesn’t take away from what Alvarez was able to accomplish. This is by far his greatest victory as a professional, and one that will shoot him near top of boxing’s pound for pound ladder.

What we learned about Canelo is that he truly backed up his talk on this evening. It was Alvarez who stood toe-to-toe with Golovkin early on, and it was Alvarez who dictated the pace of the fight early and often. Golovkin deserves credit for a strong final rounds push, yet it just wasn’t enough to secure the victory.

Alvarez has mentioned that he will likely return in December, but who knows after a fight like this, what he will do. Golovkin will be best, at his advanced age, to sit out the remainder of the year and return as fresh as he can in 2019.

We have had two battles between these two and while we haven’t had a truly conclusive verdict, given that each fight was so close, we can say that these two men are meant for each other. Congrats to both.