Canelo Alvarez came tantalisingly close to defeating Dmitry Bivol on the judges scorecards with the fight scored level until the penultimate round.
The Mexican suffered the second defeat of his career having been largely outboxed by the slick Russian throughout the contest at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Bivol was handed the unanimous decision victory with Tim Cheatham, Dave Moretti, and Steve Weisfeld scoring the bout at 115-113 in favour of the champion.
However, despite consensus from fans and experts suggesting the margin of defeat was much greater, Alvarez came close to being handed victory. The Mexican was judged to be winning the fight on all three scorecards after the ninth round by a margin of 86-85.
