Golovkin On Judges For First Two Canelo Fights: “They Were Used Like Disposable Tissues”

Gennadiy Golovkin evidently is no longer harboring too much resentment about the scorecards produced in his first two fights with Canelo Alvarez.

The unified middleweight titlist from Kazakhstan told the New York Post that he does not hold any outsize mistrust of the judges who will be involved in his upcoming third fight with Alvarez in a super middleweight title unification on Sept. 17 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Golovkin’s two fights with Alvarez were embroiled in controversy because of the scoring, but Golovkin said that he quickly got over those verdicts.

The first fight, in 2017, ended in a highly disputed draw; many observers felt Golovkin deserved the nod on the scorecards. The second fight, in 2018, saw Alvarez win a majority decision and while there was less controversy around that fight, many people believed it could have just as easily been ruled a draw or a win in favor of Golovkin.

The collective outcomes initially appeared to have embittered Golovkin. Indeed, in the wake of the second Alvarez fight, Golovkin made wholesale changes to his team: he demoted his longtime handler Tom Loeffler and ditched trainer Abel Sanchez for Johnathon Banks.

But in the Post interview, Golovkin indicated that he has become much more blasé about those negative experiences, even if he still feels he was sufficiently robbed. The Kazakh puncher compared the judges in those fights to “disposable tissue”, implying that what he feels was those judges’ poor judgement will not necessarily be replicated in his upcoming trilogy bout with Alvarez.

“I’ll be honest with you, I moved on the next day,” Golovkin said. “I haven’t thought about it much. I realized that those people who gave those scores, they were used. They were used like disposable tissues are being used. It was time to use them, they were used and disposed of.”

The first Alvarez-Golovkin fight saw judge Adalaide Byrd turn in a mind boggling 110-118 scorecard in favor of Alvarez. Dave Moretti scored it 115-113 for Golovkin, while Don Trella had it even at 114-114.

In the second fight, Glen Feldman scored it a draw, while both Dave Moretti and Steve Weisfeld had Alvarez winning 113-115.

Judges and officials for Alvarez-Golovkin III have not yet been announced.

The buildup to the third Alvarez-Golovkin fight has been marked by Alvarez’s unusually aggressive attitude. Golovkin brushed off the Mexican superstar’s rhetoric––and intense staredowns—as evidence that there is “toxic” energy in his camp.

“I cannot speak for him, his behavior, I think it just shows his true face,” Golovkin said. “The way he was probably brought up and the level of toxicity around him, toxic people that are in his camp.”