Canelo beats William Scull by unanimous decision to reclaim undisputed status at 168
CANELO Alvarez is once again the undisputed champion at super-middleweight after defeating William Scull in Riyadh. The nature of the fight divided opinion as judge Pablo Gonzalez scored it 115-113, Ron McNair 116-112 and Danrex Tapdasan a wide 119-109 all to Canelo.
Sizeable Scull was feinting and moving, busy doing not very much. Canelo stalked as usual, throwing away the left hand in the first round, waiting to see if Scull reacted. He did. A flashing right hand to the body appeared in round two as Scull tried to exit the pocket.
Switch-hitting Scull planted his feet briefly in the third, trying to get his own right hand going. The antics continued into round four. Canelo was not landing much cleanly but Scull was not landing anything of note at all. At least he wasn’t shipping heavy punishment.
Despite his size advantages, Scull has never been one for standing inside and leaning on. Instead, he was moving like Erislandy Lara, dipping in and out, trying to frustrate Canelo. Was Scull’s plan to last the distance? His uppercut was working well, but not thrown with conviction.
“Pay attention,” said Eddy Reynoso between rounds six and seven. Scull found a home for some of his shots, especially the uppercut, but he wasn’t committing to it fully.
The pattern continued into the final couple of rounds. The onus was on Canelo to force the action and push Scull into corners of discomfort. The Cuban was happy to skirt and dance away from trouble.
CompuBox stats made for interesting reading as Scull threw 293 punches to Canelo’s 152. Canelo landed a single shot more at 56 to 55, lagging 22-8 on headshots. He did win the battle of the body shots, 40-6.
After a prolonged post-fight ceremony, Canelo and Terence Crawford faced off for what Turki Alalshikh described as the ‘Fight of the Century’ in Las Vegas in September.
Back to the main event in Riyadh, Canelo, 63-2-2 (39 KOs), criticised Scull, 23-1 (9 KOs), for trying to survive rather than win.
