Tom Loeffler, promoter for IBF, IBO, WBA, WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs), is not laying the complete blame on judge Adalaide Byrd for her scorecard of 118-110 in favor of Saul "Canelo" Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs).
Last Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Golovkin and Canelo fought to a controversial twelve round split draw.
Byrd had only given Golovkin two rounds. Don Trella's had a 115-113 verdict for Golovkin and Dave Moretti's 114-114 secured the draw ruling.
Loeffler is very confident that Golovkin clearly won the contest.
He believes Byrd's scorecard would be irrelevant if Morretti had swung his card in favor of Golovkin.
"We wouldn't be hesitant about coming back to Nevada but we'd be more selective with the officials that were assigned," Loeffler said to Sky Sports. "[Byrd's] scoring system doesn't fit GGG's style, so that gives an argument not to have her involved.
"I can't blame Vegas. [Moretti], who scored a draw, was from the east coast and we've had no problem with him before. The referee Kenny Bayless did an excellent job. So two out of three Vegas officials were fine, the one from the east coast had a draw, then the other [was Byrd].
"If [Moretti] didn't have a draw we wouldn't be talking about [Byrd's] scorecard. So we can't put all the blame on Byrd. [Moretti] needs to be held accountable too."
While Loeffler had no issue with any of the officials when they were presented, he will certainly have second thoughts in the future.
"We can appeal if there's a specific reason why a judge shouldn't be selected. Byrd has been appealed against for a Vasyl Lomachenko fight before. I looked at the overall group [last week], and I was OK, although [Golovkin's trainer Abel Sanchez] had concerns with Byrd. I figured that Moretti and Trella had judged several fights of ours in the past. Frankly, so had Byrd and we've never had an issue before so there was no reason to disqualify any of those three officials," Loeffler said.
There is a rematch clause on Canelo's end of the bout agreement, but there is no word if the Mexican superstar intends to exercise that option.


