Saul “Canelo” Alvarez has once again unified the four major world titles at super middleweight by reclaiming the IBF belt. At The Venue Riyadh Season, the Mexican won a unanimous decision over Cuban William Scull with the following scorecards: 115–113, 116–112, 119–109. The last obstacle before the highly anticipated showdown with Terence Crawford scheduled for September has thus been cleared, but it happened in one of the dullest fights in boxing history.
It was already clear that this bout wouldn’t be a rerun of Castillo vs Corrales, but the total lack of action that unlucky viewers had to witness exceeded even the most pessimistic expectations.
The overall tone of the fight was set from the first round, in which the moment of highest drama came when Canelo landed a right hook—on Scull’s shoulder. A completely insignificant episode, but still more noteworthy than the other two minutes and fifty-nine seconds.
William Scull did not step into the ring with the intention of winning. The Cuban seemed quite content to grab the paycheck and put on a marathon performance, running and bouncing from one corner of the ring to the other while throwing a handful of half-hearted jabs.
Canelo, on the other hand, wasn’t doing much more. The Mexican lingered lazily in the center of the ring and only occasionally threw a flurry, lacking the explosiveness and energy needed to seriously damage his opponent.
The rounds ticked by in a yawn-inducing sequence, with noteworthy punches—like a nice right uppercut from Scull at the beginning of round six—so rare they could be counted on one hand.
The judges’ task was particularly difficult in such a monotonous and uneventful fight, having to weigh a couple of weak jabs against a forgettable body shot during the one-minute break. From this writer’s perspective, however, Canelo deserved a slight lead at the halfway mark due to a marginally greater willingness to exchange.
From round seven onward, the Mexican tried to pick up the pace a bit, occasionally pressing his opponent more aggressively. These efforts widened the gap on the scorecards but failed to produce the breakthrough he was looking for. Scull’s tying and running tactics allowed him to avoid any real exchanges, as he kept focusing on hearing the final bell without a scratch on his face.
The Cuban’s provocative antics—including a bizarre leg-shuffle in the ninth round as if he were putting on a masterclass—seemed pretty pathetic given his total inability to land decent punches.
Canelo’s frustration at not being able to punish such a limited opponent became evident in the eleventh round, when he landed a low blow with his right hand and later unleashed a hard left uppercut after a referee’s break.
Still, Scull never abandoned his awful game plan and even in the championship rounds he continued to use all his energy avoiding exchanges and minimizing risk.
In my opinion, two of the three judges were too generous to the Cuban, who didn’t deserve more than three rounds considering how little he actually fought. It’s likely that Pablo Gonzalez and Ron McNair tried to evenly split the many uneventful rounds, leading to more balanced final scores.
Although William Scull was undoubtedly the main reason for the dreadful spectacle, Canelo’s performance was also disappointing and is not exactly a great calling card ahead of the Crawford fight.
To be fair, cutting off the ring has never been one of Canelo’s strengths, but the fierce determination with which he used to hunt down and break excellent outboxers like Billy Joe Saunders and Caleb Plant now seems completely gone.
The highly decorated Guadalajara fighter appears to lose a bit of speed and sharpness with every fight. Against Scull, his legs looked like they were stuck in quicksand, and his punches were consistently a split second too late.
In September, Canelo will surely enter the ring as the favorite due to his significant size advantage, but the odds of Terence Crawford pulling off a Sugar Ray Leonard–style upset, like the one against Marvin Hagler so many years ago, now look slightly higher than they did a few months back…