Quote Originally Posted by Gandalf View Post
A body shot is only worth the same as a head shot. So whilst a body shot may look flash, it is a single scored punch as is a directly landed headshot. I don't draw a distinction between the two in a scoring sense.

Ring generalship is about doing what you want to do and making your opponent do what he doesn't want to do. In that sense both fighters did that in the rounds I thought they won. Lara was making Canelo miss a LOT of punches with his Cuban style and outlanding Canelo, then at times Canelo looked to be coming on with pressure and body attacks. Overall on a round by round basis, I thought Lara won the fight, a close, not very fun, technical victory.

Scoring a fight is a combination of generalship, effective aggression, defense and how much Oscar powder you have been slipped. It is on that basis that I now fully understand the scoring of Judge Martinez.
A body shot is supposed to mean as much as a head shot in the amateurs with Olympic style scoring. In the professionals we are expected to decide a difference in punches. I thought Canelo's body shots meant more (and I thought he landed more than Shostats gave him credit for) than the (sometimes) fleeting shots of Lara. The straight lefts are the only shots the Cuban stood his ground on and he seemed to give up on those in round four. Half the time Lara hit Canelo, it was as he was turning him so obviously those punches aren't going to register as much as the loud, digging blows of Alvarez. Also, I'm not debating a 117-11 scorecard here because I don't agree with that card but it doesn't surprise me either and I don't think it's a case of corruption.

I'll get to the other replies later but my only point is that Lara was not what I think of as a ring general. Rigondeaux, Ward, Mayweather etc. keep you out of punching range for no more than a second at a time then work themselves into a position that works for them. Lara did not control the ring but instead controlled the pace, which is not the same thing. He decided the fight would be contested five seconds at a time. If he would have just thrown more shots off of a planted back foot then I would halfway buy that argument but he didn't. I don't know, Viva La Argentina.