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For the better part of five years, the boxing world has been debating between Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin. That won’t stop, even after Saturday night, nor will it anytime soon. Alvarez and Golovkin gave the sport its best three-fight high-profile boxing display this era has seen, and as with all hard-fought rivalries over the years, the banter surrounding them won’t stop now. What makes the discussion even more heated is the fact that we were also given two of the most discussed sets of scorecards in boxing history.
Saturday’s third fight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, the site of all the fights in the trilogy, certainly gave us high-level boxing, but none of the need to debate the legitimate victor.
Canelo easily defeated Golovkin in a fight that many observers scored in the range of 9-3 and 11-1 in rounds, but officially went 116-112 and 115-113 twice. Had David Sutherland and Steve Weisfeld each scored one more round in favor of Golovkin, this fight would have been a draw as well.
One has to speculate whether the ringside judges were unconsciously influenced by the years of discussion surrounding the scores of the first two Canelo-GGG bouts. The judges are also part of the boxing community, some more openly involved in its social discussion than others. For five years, the possibility that Golovkin deserved to win the first fight at the very least has been discussed somewhere on boxing networks every day. Conspiracy theories abounded that Canelo was in the pocket of Nevada judges, and in every interview Golovkin conducted since then, the issue of unfair judgment towards him was discussed. Then, in the least competitive fight of the three, the one with the clearest winner, Golovkin finally got the benefit of the doubt in rounds he may not have won.
Maybe it was the way the boxing universe balanced things out. At the absolute peak of his powers, it’s more than fair to think he deserved a win over Alvarez that cemented his legacy in his first fight. But the two fighters did not start at the same starting point. Golovkin was in his prime, in his prime, and Alvarez was maybe a year or two away from his peak in 2017. Yet when the bell rang last weekend, Golovkin was 40, his legs a little insecure sometimes. , his hair thinning, his hands a little more hesitant. Meanwhile, Canelo was 32 years old and fighting at a weight where he had comfortably grown and dominated the division.
Golovkin still had his iron chin, occasional flashes of power, but none of the combination of menacing, untethered punches he had half a decade ago, and understandably so. Canelo was simply quicker, sharper and more confident in his offensive approach.
The marketing of the fight, both from the feathers of the unsuspecting brains of the marketing department and from the mouths of the fighters themselves, promised finality to the rivalry. In an interpersonal sense, when it comes to the fighters themselves, he did exactly that.
Even though boxing is a sport where fighters literally try to beat each other up unconsciously, actual personal hatred between fighters is relatively uncommon. However, in the case of Canelo and GGG, the combination of unsatisfying endings and accusations of impropriety stemming from Alvarez’s positive clenbuterol test in 2018 made for a toxic stew. Even during the lead up to this fight, the fighters were accusing each other of being “bad people” and “assholes”.
But even before the final bell rang, it was clear that tonight would all be in the past. When the fighters met in the center of the ring before the 12th round, they touched gloves, which in itself is not news: Fighters with varying degrees of comfort have and will follow the custom. However, Canelo followed up the glove touch with a touch to Golovkin’s waist with his left glove, a more personal and tender mark of respect.
When the final bell rang, the two finally embraced. They brought their foreheads together the way wounded but united athletes do, and talked to each other for what seemed like a full minute. Before parting ways, Golovkin appeared to kiss Alvarez on the cheek.
“Thank you my friend. Thank you. We gave the fans three good fights and thank you for everything,” Canelo told Golovkin in the ring. “He’s a really good fighter. He’s strong. He’s a great fighter, and that’s why we’re here. I’m going to keep going to keep my legacy growing strong. He’s tough, he’s a tough fighter.
“This is a high level fight, this is the best fight in boxing. Everyone knows Canelo. It’s high level, high performance,” Golovkin said. “Very good quality. This fight was more tactical, like chess. Today, Canelo was better.”
As much as we love authentic hate between fighters as it makes the fight itself feel more legitimate, we also want the fight itself to be a solution to their personal conflict. It makes sense of the sport, and perhaps selfishly alleviates any guilt we may have for watching two enemies hurt each other for entertainment. It humanizes boxing, but it also humanizes it. The sport provided a platform for two people to earn each other’s respect and friendship, the hard way possible, all for our entertainment.
