A consensus scorecard review alongside the Canelo Alvarez vs. Billy Joe Saunders fight statistics shows the majority of thousands tallying the fight scored it a draw.
Upon gathering over two thousand totals for the Texas record-breaker, it states the competitive encounter could have been level after eight completed rounds.
World Boxing News scored the contest 76-76 when going live on site. But many Canelo fans and stateside media personnel couldn’t see Saunders winning any rounds at all.
This dismissal irked the British fans and caused a back-and-forth of social channels. WBN then decided to investigate.
Upon analyzing many, many cards for the clash, the vast swaying of points and stats lean-to Saunders winning the first round.
According to the numbers, he then took the fifth, sixth, and seventh as Canelo worked out his style.
During the eighth, that’s when Canelo turned. His body shots throughout the fight had taken effect to slow Saunders down.
Realizing Saunders was ducking down, rather than his previous backing off method and circling him, Canelo went for crushing uppercuts to maximum effect.
With Saunders lowering his head to get out of the way and Canelo coming the opposite way, velocity increased the force of the punches.
It’s almost certainly what smashed the side of the Brit’s face so badly.
Taking a significant portion of the US side of scoring out of the equation and looking closely at the punch tallies shows how Canelo chose his shot wisely. You can then begin to see how the fight panned out scoring-wise.
Plenty on the UK side of the fence captured the impressive work of Saunders. He got in and out of range to frustrate Canelo at times.
Ex-world title challenger Ashley Theophane is one of those who had Saunders up in the fight. He couldn’t believe that some were stating Canelo won a shut-out for how long it lasted.
“Can’t believe this. WTF is going on. I had Billy Joe Saunder winning against Canelo 5-3 at the time of the stoppage,” he said.
Matchroom stablemate of both fighters, Natasha Jonas, added: “I had it 4-4. What happened?”
Vergil Ortiz could give Saunders no more than a couple: “I don’t know, but there’s no way you could give Saunders more than two rounds,” said the welterweight star.
CompuBox, the respected source of punch stats in the sport, revealed their findings post-fight.
They showed the Canelo picked his punches far better than Saunders, especially those power blows that eventually did the damage.
“Canelo landed 52.7% of his power punches and landed 39 body shots in his 8th round KO of Saunders,” they pointed out.
“Saunders outlanded Canelo 31-18 in rounds 5-7, but Alvarez turned it on in the 8th, landing 12 of 23 power shots.”
CANELO vs. SAUNDERS FIRST
In the scorecard review, the majority had Saunders winning the first, and this is where the draw theory could come unstuck.
Canelo may have thrown just thirteen shots, but he landed seven of them. So there’s a massive shout that the Mexican superstar should take the first.
Therefore, going on what CompuBox state about rounds five to seven, the score should have been 77-75 to the unified champ.
Taking the consensus is the only way you can land at a draw through eight. But Saunders has a considerable argument for having claimed at least three of those eight rounds during his best spell of the fight in the mid-rounds.
Phil Jay is the Editor of WBN. An Auxiliary member of the Boxing Writers Association of America since 2018. And a member of the Sports Journalists’ Association. Follow on Twitter @PhilJWBN.
