Through five completed rounds and before Canelo completely wiped Khan out with a haymaker shot in the sixth, the general consensus was that the Briton had done enough to be ahead in the fight.
Khan seemed to have banked the first quartet of rounds clearly before Canelo gained a foothold in the contest, although on viewing the official document, the champion was up on two of the cards.
Despite being academic in the end, the scores will still be concerning to some as a spate of bad judging decisions continue to dog the sport.
At least three of the first four sessions were clear for Khan, in my view, which was a different story for two of the ringside judges.
Only one, the experienced Adalaide Byrd, gave Khan those three rounds in question, whilst Glen Trowbridge somehow only scored one of the first four sessions for the ex-super lightweight king.
Tactics of racking up the rounds and avoiding Canelo’s big shots ultimately failed to come off for the Bolton man, but judging by the scoring, a points win was already in doubt from the halfway point.
A crowd of 16,540 witnessed Canelo’s stunning triumph and are now keeping their fingers crossed that a fight with Gennady Golovkin is next in the fall.
