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Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin fought 24 rounds in the space of a year, with little to pick between them.
When the scorecards were totalled on Sunday (Australian time) though, there was a new middleweight champion of the world — but not by much.
Alvarez won the 160-pound titles held by Golovkin by the narrowest of margins, taking a majority decision to hand the longtime champion his first loss as a pro.
Two judges, Dave Moretti and Steve Weisfeld favoured 28-year-old Alvarez 115-113, while the third, Glenn Feldman had it 114-114.
A year after the two fought to a draw, the second fight was almost as close.
There were no knockdowns, but the action was spirited throughout as the two battled to the final bell before a frenzied crowd at the Las Vegas Arena.
"He's a great fighter but I'm a great fighter and I showed it tonight," Alvarez said.
The two fighters switched roles from their first fight, with Triple G trying to counter Alvarez and the Mexican fighter coming forward much of the fight.
Both landed well to the head and Golovkin — who now has a record of 38 wins, 1 draw and 1 defeat — controlled some rounds with his jab, though neither were ever in any trouble of going down.
The fight was a rematch of a draw last September that left neither fighter satisfied.
This time it was Golovkin who was upset, and he stormed out of the ring without talking to the media.
"I can't complain, that's what we have the judges for," said Abel Sanchez, Golovkin's trainer.
Ringside punch stats showed a close fight, though they favoured Golovkin by a small margin. Golovkin was credited with landing 234 of 879 punches while Alvarez — whose record now stands at 50 wins, 1 draw and 2 defeats — landed 203 of 622.
Almost immediately there was talk of a third fight between two middleweights, who now know each other well.
"If the people want us to do it again, let's do it again," Alvarez said. "For now I'm going to enjoy it with my family."
Alvarez seemed to take control of the fight in the middle rounds, but Triple G came on strong in the final few rounds to make it as close as it could be. Golovkin landed several big punches to start the 12th round but still lost it on the two scorecards that ended up favouring Alvarez.
Both fighters were cut with Alvarez having one over his left eye and Golovkin cut over the right eye.
It was the first loss in 40 fights for Golovkin, the fearsome puncher from Kazakhstan — who held portions of the middleweight title for seven years — and it came at the hands of the red-headed Alvarez, a Mexican star whose positive test for clenbuterol forced the rematch to be postponed from May.
They put on another show before a roaring crowd of 21,965, who crowded into the arena on the Las Vegas Strip with high anticipation in the biggest fight of the year.
Most of the crowd on Mexican Independence Day weekend were supporting Alvarez, who seemed to control much of the pace of the fight even while taking some sharp shots to the head.
Though Golovkin has a reputation as a knockout artist, he never seemed to hurt Alvarez, who credited his fight plan with the win.
"I showed my victory with facts," Alvarez said. "He was the one who was backing up. It was a clear victory."
Alvarez was guaranteed $US5 million, with $US4 million for Golovkin, though both fighters were expected to make many millions more from the biggest pay-per-view in boxing so far this year.
AP
Topics: sport, boxing, united-states