SPORTSWORLD.AM
In recent years, Saul Alvarez has been the subject of criticism. “Canelo is getting old,” “Canelo only looks for easy fights,” “Canelo loves money too much,” and all that. Of course, there is some truth in this. There are many questions about the Mexican boxer, but he remains a superstar, and absolutely any fight of Alvarez has the status of the best. The fight with Cuban William Scull was of great interest, especially since the IBF belt, which Saul himself had recently renounced, was at stake. And now Canelo has decided to return the title and, at the same time, the title of absolute world champion in the super middleweight category.
32-year-old Scully seemed like an easy walk for the world's richest active boxer. Yes, the name Skull, nicknamed Unshakable, was not particularly well-known to the general public, but this guy didn't get his belt for nothing. At the time of the meeting with Canelo, the Cuban had a perfect 23:0 record and could surprise with an unusual style. Scully's very viscous and dense boxing became a problem even for our compatriot Vladimir Shishkin, who lost to Scully in a title fight six months ago. It was interesting to see if Alvarez would be able to find the key to Unshakable.
The fight began practically without strikes, both boxers simply looked at each other and moved slightly from side to side. However, it was already clear that Canelo was aiming for the center of the ring, and Scully was waiting for the opportunity to work on counterattacks. The activity in the second round was also not very good. Alvarez played alone, but did not rush, while the Cuban mostly jumped around the ropes. Gradually, William began to work a little more boldly, periodically testing Canelo's block. The Mexican, as always, acted aggressively and clearly aimed at the body, trying to slow down his awkward opponent. In the early rounds, it seemed that Scully simply did not have a plan to defeat his star opponent.
The Cuban could only boast of successful head defense, but he completely lost the first half. Saul slowly followed his opponent, sometimes missing counterattacks, which did not prevent him from periodically delivering his own blows to the target. Canelo did the main thing: he was active and tried to really box. But William, in his style, acted defensively, although statistically he landed even more blows than the contender for his belt. Skal smiled sarcastically after Canelo's attacks and moved a lot, but after eight rounds, according to the independent referee's assessments, he took only one three-minute round, which seemed absolutely fair. There were too few real attacks on his part, William, rather, faked the offensive activity.
I wanted to hope that in the end, Gang would try to achieve a knockout, because there were no other options for victory. However, the Cuban did not even come close to making such attempts. He was still dancing around the ropes, trying to pull Canelo onto him and losing points. The fight turned out to be extremely immodest - only 111 accurate blows between the two, which was clearly not Alvarez's fault. All the judges gave the victory to the Mexican, Canelo is again the absolute world champion in his weight class.