My thoughts on Mayweather VS Alvarez fight from last night:
A few days ago, on this site, I made a prediction that this fight would go the distance and would be close. I didn't pick a winner other than to say it would be a close fight. I think my prediction was essentially correct, as I thought the fight was very close and could perhaps be called a draw.
First of all, I watched the fight in a bar, so I couldn't hear Showtime's commentary. However, I noticed that the replays in between rounds tended to show a bias in favour of Mayweather. Every round, both Alvarez and Mayweather were landing shots. Yet, the replays literally always showed Mayweather's punches and seemed to be censoring Alvarez's landed punches. Some rounds, Alvarez was landing nice punches, and then in bizarre fashion, the replays would completely ignore it and instead focus on replaying Mayweather's landed punches. It was truly bizarre and obviously very biased. I can't say I'm surprised though.
Secondly, I thought Alvarez fought a great fight, and deserves credit on his effort. He is only 23 years old, and had 0 amateur fights. It's important to understand how inexperienced Alvarez is compared to Mayweather (100+ Amateur fights, Olympics, 40+ pro fights), and even other boxers like say Golovkin (400+ Amateur fights, Olympics, 25+ pro fights). With all that considered, I was very impressed with his fight, and I thought he performed in an excellent manner. Alvarez is only going to improve from this, so, although the loss hurts, he will get better from here on.
Thirdly, I thought the fight was pretty close, if I remember correctly I thought the first 3 rounds all favoured Alvarez. Alvarez also picked up 1 or 2 in the middle and end. Mayweather was running badly in the last 2 or 3 rounds, and I thought Alvarez won 1 or 2 of them because Mayweather simply had no offense in those rounds. I could see a draw result, or a close decision win for Mayweather as being an accurate scorecard.
Mayweather seems to be slipping a bit in my opinion. He had a very close fight with a 23 year old guy who had 0 amateur fights. I firmly believe after this fight, Golovkin would beat him. Golovkin has 400+ amateur fights and in sparring, was apparently beating Alvarez quite easily. Mayweather was also getting hit with jabs and right hands more often than before. Alvarez landed 100+ punches according to CompuBox, and I was surprised at how easily he was landing his jab on Mayweather's face. If Alvarez was just a bit faster or more accurate (ie like Golovkin) we would have seen better exchanges. Mayweather is slipping.
Golovkin/Mayweather is a fight I would bet on, and I would lay serious money down on Gennady.