Canelo Narrowly Beats Golovkin In Middleweight Championship

Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez edges out Gennady Golovkin by a majority decision to take WBC and WBA middleweight titles in Saturday night rematch at Las Vegas.

Last year on the same Mexican Independence Day, Alvarez scored a contentious draw against the defending champion, that drew criticism on judging from the boxing world. That was the first fight Golovkin didn't win.

This time an improved Alvarez, 28, coming out of a drug use ban and the associated criticism, started the fight as the aggressor and dominated the early rounds.

Golovkin, 36, got into his zone and appeared to have turned around the fight in later rounds until the Mexican struck back in a close last round.

The judges scored the fight 114-114 115-113 115-113 in favour of Alvarez.

"My corner told me I needed to win the final round and that's what I did. I'm very emotional," said Alvarez, who has previously held world titles at middleweight and light-middleweight.

Golovkin told reporters afterwards: "I'm not going to say who won tonight, because the victory belongs to Canelo according to the judges. I thought I fought better than he did. We would like to have a third fight, we will negotiate that, that's what we want."

The fans, professionals and champions all applauded both the fighters for putting on a blockbuster fight that went as close as it could.

The close fight was also translated into statistics with the Kazakh outlanding Alvarez but the later scoring more power punches.

But controversy again engulfed the final scorecard ensuing a strong demand for a trilogy.