It should shock nobody to learn that the Nevada State Athletic Commission is standing by the judge who is the talk of the boxing world.
Adalaide Byrd’s opinion that Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez had done enough to warrant a lopsided 118-110 decision over Gennady Golovkin is being discussed more than the fight itself, which is an utter shame.
Most believe that Golovkin was robbed of a clear win in his most high-profile bout to date on Saturday night.
It was all that anybody wanted to talk about at the post-fight press conference in the early hours of Sunday morning and NSAC Executive Director Bob Bennett knew he had to address the controversy.
The insane scorecards alongside the Compubox stats of #CaneloGGG pic.twitter.com/QVGJ1tGrsy
— Darragh Murphy (@DarrMurphy) September 17, 2017
Bennett spoke to the media shortly after the final bell and while he admitted that he believed Byrd was a little off in her scoring, he unsurprisingly defended the under-fire judge.
“Adalaide, in my estimation, is an outstanding judge,” Bennett said, via ESPN. “She’s done over 115 title fights and/or elimination bouts. She does a great deal of our training. Takes a lot of our judges under her wing. I think being a judge is a very challenging position.
“Unfortunately, Adalaide was a little wide. I’m not making any excuses. I think she’s an outstanding judge, and in any business, sometimes you have a bad day. She saw the fight differently. It happens.”
Fans of both boxing and mixed martial arts have considered Byrd a controversial figure for years and her take on GGG vs. Canelo was, by no means, the first contentious scorecard handed over by her.
Byrd was the only judge who had Amir Khan up on the cards (48-47) when he met ‘Canelo’ last year, she registered a scorecard of 118-110 when Diego Magdaleno narrowly defeated Nonito Donaire in a junior featherweight world title fight that same year and she was also the only judge who believed Bernard Hopkins beat Joe Calzaghe in 2008 (114-113).
Maybe judging’s not for her…
