Promoter Eddie Hearn believes one of his two super middleweights from either Callum Smith (WBA champion) or Billy Joe Saunders (WBO champion) will face Canelo Alvarez in May 2020. Canelo himself holds the WBA ‘Regular’ title in the twelve stone division as well as the WBO Light Heavyweight title following his spectacular knockout of Sergey Kovalev.

The moves that the leading fighters at 168lbs will make are all heavily determined by whoever Canelo fights next. Hearn’s own interests had a spanner thrown in the works on Saturday night in the shape of John Ryder. The Londoner, who was WBA mandatory challenger, pushed Callum Smith all the way in an entertaining twelve round tussle in Liverpool that has people split on who won. The argument appears stronger for Ryder but the only thing that the record books will tell you is that Smith won. Ryder’s reputation and credibility as a force in the division has however gone to another level.

“It won't help his disappointment if he [Ryder] thinks he won the fight but he's in a much better position today than he was Friday and his name is now established on the world scene and I believe he will get another opportunity in 2020,” Hearn told Boxing Scene earlier this week.

“I think John Ryder deserves another shot at a world title,” he added. “I have no problem with (making) the rematch. Taking away the scorecards it was a really good fight. That's one of the disappointing things (of it all) because although people aren't saying it wasn’t a good fight, they're not saying it like they should be. It was a really good all-British world championship fight.

“Callum has boxed George Groves, boxed Hassan N'Dam and John Ryder. Of course he wants the biggest fights possible but if that wasn't deliverable then I think the John Ryder rematch is well up there and well worthy. You always want Canelo, Golovkin, unifications but if they can't be delivered then a John Ryder rematch in the U.K is a big fight. A lot of people are talking about that fight rightly or wrongly and I would have no issue making that rematch.”

Ryder’s manager Tony Sims will write to the WBA President Gilberto Mendoza to express his grievances at the scorecards on the night which were 116-112 (twice) and 117-111. It is the latter, from veteran judge and referee Terry O’Connor, that has been the subject of much debate between everyone involved in boxing inside or out. O’Connor’s scorecard gave Ryder three rounds, something that many who watched vehemently disagree with.

“From my point of view it was a really, really close fight. For me, you could never say that was a robbery but the scorecards were a robbery,” Hearn said.

“I've seen a lot worse cards but I think the general consensus is it's a round, two rounds either way so where do you get 117-111 from? No-one gave 117-111 to anyone really, other than Terry O'Connor.”

Hearn’s suggestion to fix the problem of poor scorecards is to have open scoring (where scorecards are revealed after four and eight rounds) as implemented by the WBC, which has been used in world title fights in the past across the world. Hearn believes in its merits after seeing it for himself while promoting fights in Italy recently.

“The WBC have always pushed open scoring and I've never really been a fan but since we've been doing our shows in Italy and we've actually experienced it I think it's great. And you would've been in a situation where on Saturday... you would have Callum Smith up 6-2 after eight rounds with one of the judges and that's the second portion of the live open scoring. There might have been a bit of an uproar but Ryder knows that he has to win by knockout. It then opens the fight up, it becomes a lot more interesting, a lot more aggressive if you like. The downside is you take away the surprise element of the judges scorecards.”

An argument put to him by myself was that fans might lose interest, even switch off, if a card is revealed to be so wide despite them thinking otherwise. Which may even lead to a negative reaction in the venue. Boos could be heard inside Liverpool’s Echo Arena after the scorecards were read out for Smith v Ryder, albeit that may have came mainly from fans of Ryder.

Hearn disagreed with the point, responding with: “No, because you make it even more exciting,” 

“For example Tony Sims [John Ryder’s trainer] would say to Ryder, you have to knock him out to win. I'm not saying we should introduce it but we need to do something. He [Ryder] could have only won that fight by knockout if open scoring was there after eight rounds. How exciting would that have made it? He was definitely aggressive in the back end of the fight but would have gone hell for leather if he knew the scorecards because he thought he was probably up or close going into 10 or 11.”

The one word that continues to retain its position in the argument of poor scorecards is “subjective”. It’s how we see the fight, it’s our opinion, if it’s a close round it can go either way and so on. But experienced, supposed competent officials are in their position for a reason. Everyone involved in a fight, everyone watching a fight is relying on them to do an efficient job.

Open scoring? More judges? Ex-boxers as judges? Explanations from judges post-fight? The proposed answers, the proposed debates will continue to rage on and we will continue to go round in circles until something is done about it or until the word “subjective” is rammed down our throats enough times that we swallow it grudgingly as we do with other words in boxing.

Hearn now has to come up with a solution to appease his super middleweight trio of Smith, Saunders and Ryder moving forward. All of whom will have meaningful fights next year. Hearn is fairly confident that one of the first two will face Canelo next May. One gets the “golden ticket” as Hearn says. The other needs to find challenges and rewards elsewhere. A rematch from a 2013 British Middleweight title encounter could be one of the answers.

“if Canelo fights Callum, maybe Billy Joe fights John Ryder. Or if Canelo gets Billy Joe, maybe Callum rematches Ryder. Callum's in a situation where he's had two world title defences and he wants to test himself against the very best in the division and he needs that and that's what 2020 will bring. But unfortunately we are being dictated to by the king, as in Canelo. We can't do anything. I know what I want to do. I want one of my guys to fight Canelo and then after that everything else will arrange itself but right now Callum and Billy want to fight Canelo. If neither of them get that fight then they're likely to fight each other but I believe one of them will get that fight, I'm quite confident that one of them will get that fight in May. Once we know that we'll know what the other one will do.”