Saturday night’s highly anticipated fight between Gennady Golovkin and Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez featured the best and worst of boxing. The best in a hard fought battle between two of the toughest warriors in the sport, and the worst in a wonky judge’s scorecard that left fans frustrated with a draw.
Out of the three judges that were at ringside for the fight, judge Adalaide Byrd is being given the hardest time for scoring the match 118-110 in favor of Canelo. Dave Moretti had it 115-113 for Golovkin and Don Trella saw things as a 114-114 draw. It’s far from the first time Byrd has ended up making headlines for all the wrong reasons, and it probably won’t be her last. Despite completely flubbing her scorecard, the Nevada State Athletic Commission will continue to employ her as an official following ‘a short break.’
“I’m not going to put her right back in,” NSAC executive Bennett told the LA Times. “She’ll still be in the business, but she needs to catch her breath. Like in any profession, you have a bad night. Unfortunately, she didn’t do well. I can tell you she conducts training for us, takes judges under her wing,but her score was too wide.”
One of the most frustrating parts of combat sports is all inept officials left in power by the state by state collection of athletic commissions that oversee the sport. You’d think screwing up the scoring on the most important fight of the year would be grounds for letting someone go, but that’s not the way it ever seems to work. More often, the commission decides to circle the wagons and refuse to even admit a score was bad.
That’s why we were almost shocked that Bennett did just that, saying Byrd had ‘a bad day’ when she ‘went a little wide.’ Make no mistake, this isn’t the first scorecard Adalaide has handed in that was completely wrong. Bad judging happens regularly across boxing and MMA at all levels. With three scores coming in, the right person usually wins. But as we saw with a close fight like this, you can’t afford to keep judges around that have a reputation for handing in vastly disparate decisions.
Byrd’s reputation in that regard is so bad that more than a few media members expressed their concern when it was revealed that she’d be judging the fight. Their fears were well founded, but even after this fiasco, we doubt the NSAC will revise their stubborn opinion of Byrd as a skilled judge that just had a bad night. For a fight of this size and importance, there should be no bad nights. The fighters putting their health and careers on the line deserve better.
