I was ringside at Cotto-Canelo and I thought the scores were too wide. While Cotto wasn’t hurting Canelo, he clearly in my opinion out boxed him in several rounds.
He blocked a lot of punches and his defense was pretty sound. Most people had Canelo winning a very close fight because he landed the more telling blows, but the scores made it seem like a blowout and it simply wasn’t.
Floyd Mayweather agrees and then adds something else to equation.
“Do I think that Canelo won? Absolutely,” Mayweather told fighthype.com’s Ben Thompson. “Canelo won the fight, but it wasn’t no 119-109. Those crazy scores [119-109 and 118-110] that they had was ridiculous. I think Nevada has the best commission in the world, and I’m not just saying that because I live here. I’m saying that because they are fair with everyone. Not just me – they are very fair with everyone. But I do think the fight was a lot closer than 119-109. That is f***ing ridiculous. In my opinion – I’m not saying this is what happened – but in my opinion, either somebody is handpicking these judges or something is going on that’s not right.”
“You mean to tell me that Cotto didn’t win at least three or four rounds?,” Mayweather said. “If you say seven to five or eight to four, we can say that because a lot of rounds was very, very close in the beginning. What’s so crazy is that it seems like it always happens when Oscar De La Hoya is involved. They said my fight with Oscar De La Hoya was a split decision, which we all know was some bullsh-t. When I faced Canelo, one of the judges scored it a draw. I got a split decision with Oscar, I got a majority decision with Canelo and you seen what just happened Saturday night. I’m just saying.”
There are more than a few people who believe that Canelo lost to Lara clearly and that his fight with Austin Trout was closer than the scores indicted.
No one in their right mind saw Mayweather-Canelo as a draw except that one judge. Not accusing Oscar of anything, but those are the facts.
It is my opinion that Vegas judges just favor the fighter than if always coming forward and throwing harder blows. They judge one HARD blow better than five accurate but not devastating blows.
That isn’t how judging is supposed to work, but it is an inexact science.